Lost Time
by ARCurren
Summary: The story of a free spirit who was asked to give up the man she loved for a system she didn't believe in and what happened next. AU after 3x04.
1. Chapter 1: August 1914

**August 1914**

Tom Branson didn't bother to light the lamp when he came through the door of the cottage that night. He navigated the kitchen table and upholstered chairs in the two front rooms from memory, made his way into the small pocket bedroom and collapsed on the bed. It had been a long day, but the last of the guests had finally been driven home from the garden party. The night summer air was stifling hot, but he couldn't be bothered to take off more than his boots and jacket.

There was much to think about.

England was at war with Germany. That was no surprise to anyone who read the papers. He had borrowed Clausewitz's _On War_ six days previous, in anticipation. He imagined Lord Grantham rummaging around for it tonight and gave a low laugh, thinking of him, irritated, holding a candle over the ledger, only to find the chauffeur had gotten it first.

Robert Crawley wasn't a bad man, he supposed, just a product of his time and class. He appreciated being allowed access to his library, although his Lordship was so magnanimous and amused. An Irish servant who _read_ _politics__? _Next, Pharoah would be taking on the Peloponnesian War! He was also aware his choice of books was being monitored, and he gamely played to his audience. So, while attempting to work through Kant's critique of David Hume, he also did a cursory check-out of _The Communist Manifesto_. Which he proceeded to throw in a corner for two weeks and then return unopened. Because why reread a book he had adequately tackled in secondary school?

He was morally opposed to materialism, but God did he envy that library! That was the only thing of the mighty Lord Grantham's he coveted.

Well.

Perhaps not the _only_ thing.

The war and its questions could wait for another half-hour. Now, alone at last in the dark, he wanted to think about Lady Sybil and specifically what had happened at the party today.

Gwen was on her way to a better station and a better life and she had Lady Sybil to thank for it. That counted for a lot to him, though he suspected she was motivated more by her caring and generous heart than by women's politics. Not that that made it any less admirable. If the world had the heart of Lady Sybil, it shouldn't need any politics.

It started when he whispered the news to her. It had come unexpectedly to him and he had forgotten himself, forgotten he was at work where he had to pretend that some beings were naturally superior to other beings, forgotten that she was his employer's daughter, forgotten how young she was and that she had probably never had a man put his lips to her ear and speak to her in a low voice in confidence.

Her skin, faintly damp from the heat, had shivered when he'd done it.

It occurred to him then that it was entirely possible he was the only man in the world who knew the trace of Lady Sybil Crawley's neck and that her hair smelled of honeysuckle. Though he was certain he was not the only man who wanted, or who had tried to come to possess, that knowledge.

In the excitement of the moment, Gwen had embraced them both and he and Lady Sybil had inadvertently found themselves flush with each other. It was a complete breach of propriety; forbidden physical contact between people of different stations. Forbidden, because it lays bare that there is only one posture that is truly natural for human beings.

He had taken her hand without thinking about it. She looked up at him with a variation of the look she had given Mr. Matthew after the disaster at Ripon. When she looked at Matthew, she looked like she had found a prince in a fairy tale; when she looked at him, she looked like she had found the best parts of a novel she was not supposed to read.

_"Be careful my lad- or you'll end up with no job and a broken heart."_

Mrs. Hughes may have broken their reverie for the moment, but the match was lit; she had eyes and those eyes had surely seen the look the Lady had given him as she reluctantly walked away. He'd been coy to her warning, but it was probably just as well. He had a mischievous streak that was too bad for his own good- he and Lady Sybil shared that in common, no doubt.

He considered her a friend, truly; that much was confirmed by how he felt when he saw her get injured at the count. And he would have loved it if, had he asked her if she would like to take a walk with him sometime, she had answered as she had the first time they spoke: _"Suppose I do..."_ in the same dare-me way. He would have gladly played that game with her all afternoon- _"I don't suppose you'd want me to hold your hand, I don't suppose you'd like me to kiss you now..." - _walking along the brook behind the estate as sun burned out.

He'd done all that before, but not since he'd been in England. He found he didn't care much for the women he met here. They were cool and reserved, not like the girls back home, though it often got them into trouble. Lady Sybil, with her bright eyes and buoyant spirit, was the only girl who had captured his imagination since he had arrived in this country. It should not have been a surprise to realize it was because she reminded him of home.

But, it was probably for the better, he thought, crossing his arms behind his head on the pillow.

Lady Sybil was just 17; he was 22, nearly 23, and well beyond his schoolboy days. He had already lived through that phase of life that was upon her: crushes and silly letters, tearful confrontations and inevitable conversations. As his mother had once told him, after a girl who'd shrugged off his advances threw her schoolbag at him when she'd found him in an alleyway a block from girls' high kissing someone else, "A girl at that age changes what she wants from one day to the next and she doesn't know what any of it means anyway."

Would he enjoy stealing kisses with Lady Sybil around the estate? He surely would. But would he like her her hanging around the cottage with tear-stained cheeks, trading all their lively conversations about politics and ambitions for endless exposition about every eyelash flutter exchanged between them and what it _means_? He had never been interested in that, and Irish girls had far more to do with their time than sit about the parlor and moon over boys. No, that was nothing he wanted to take on, especially when there were so few free hours in the day and so much to read, write, and plan for the future.

His immediate future involved working and saving money. The next-term future involved political activism, travel, maybe even a revolution up close. It might involve a love affair (or a few), all short-lived and easily broken, but definitely not a wife and_ definitely_ not a family. What would it be like- tonight, for example? Work all day and come home to crying babies and a wife who only wants to talk about the children and the bills? No, no- that was not a life for him.

And Lady Sybil, bright-eyed or not, was on a very different path. She was interested in politics now, but that would probably fade when she became interested in someone, as romantic affection has the power to animate all that's in its orbit.

That thought made him happy, because it meant Lady Sybil would just evolve to her environment, as all nature's creatures were tasked to do. It was entirely possible that in five years, when he had long since left Downton and she were engaged to some lord, she wouldn't even remember the time she had once held hands with the chauffeur.

He suspected though, as a smile spread across his face, that she was remembering it now, in one of the upstairs rooms of that big, grand house. He allowed himself to wander there for a moment- just a moment- to wonder how she was thinking of him. Then he rolled over on his side and lit the lamp. Time for Clausewitz.

He opened the book and was surprised- shocked- to find the words of a woman on the opening page:

_"It will naturally excite surprise that a preface by a female hand should accompany a work on such a subject as the present.._

As he read the preface, written by Clausewitz's wife, widowed prematurely, he was struck by the assertion that no one but her could have edited an opus work on military strategy and theory, as no one knew his labor, his mind and his heart better. Struck not that _she_ thought it, but that others concurred.

And without even meaning to think it, a thought crossed his mind:

_I must show this to Sybil._


	2. Chapter 2: 1916 Part I

**November 1916**

What a difference two years had made.

Two years ago, he wasn't sure what sort of woman Sybil Crawley would become.

Two years later, he had his answer:

the perfect one.

* * *

><p>The summer of 1914 had turned into fall, then winter, then 1915. She never pursued the fated hand-touch and neither did he. The war was still very far away then and life continued uninterrupted. Lady Sybil saw her friends and went to tea and even managed to make it through, with his encouragement, her very first serious political book, <em>A Vindication of the Rights of Women<em>. He continued to drive her and anticipate the times they would be alone together and could speak freely about the world inside and outside of Downton.

But by 1916, life had changed. It was like a rainy day that wouldn't abate. Scarcity and death had replaced decadence and joie de vivre. There were no more hunts or shooting parties, no more bands of suitors come to see the Crawley girls. The sisters spent their days at home; if they went visiting, it was just to see their grandmother or Mrs. Crawley. Matthew had been sent to the front. The trauma of that event, suffered in secret of course, had sealed Lady Mary's entrance into adulthood. Lady Edith was born old, and had always been a loner; her life seemed to be the least changed. As for Lady Sybil, her time of dances and balls and romance had been derailed before it had begun. It was not clear what her future would hold, but given that she was third of three on Lord and Lady Grantham's to-do list, with two older unmarried daughters before her and the heir off to war, no one was paying much attention to Lady Sybil.

Which, as she once told him as he steered the car up the drive, was the way she preferred it. "The same thing happened in the nursery," she said with a shrug. "By the time I was old enough to play, everyone else had left." Then with a nonchalance that was not at all affected she added, "I don't mind. I can find ways to entertain myself."

That was how she came to start visiting the garage.

* * *

><p><strong>Summer 1916<strong>

"Will you please put down that newspaper and come sit with me?" Lady Sybil demanded, gesturing to the workbench and the oil drum serving as a makeshift table. "The world will still be here in an hour, I swear it."

He narrowed his eyes over the fold. "I'm not playing bridge." But despite his protestation, he did as she asked.

"We don't have enough for bridge," she informed him, as he came over to sit down. "We're playing whist."

There was only one workbench, because there was only supposed to be one person in the garage. The bench in question was about three feet in length. He sat down as far as he could on the opposite site, conscious not to touch her. When he sat down, she (consciously or not) moved herself further towards her own edge. It was a small movement, but deftly executed. He wouldn't have noticed it at all, if he hadn't been observing her profile in the warm afternoon light.

Her hair was, as it always was now, very prettily pulled into a series of elaborate and interwoven curls that met at the nape of her neck. Her clothes were more plain than before, but she wore them better; with confidence and command. That's what she displayed in her little slide to the side- taking command to prevent something illicit, confident that being as attractive as she was, something illicit was bound to be afoot.

"Don't you need four for whist too?" he asked.

She started to deal out the cards between them. "This is two-person whist."

"Honeymoon variant."

She stopped mid-deal and looked at him with such abashed surprise, he wondered if he had intruded on her thoughts. "What?"

"That's what it's called," he explained. "A honeymoon variant. Honeymoon whist."

"Oh."

The blush on her cheeks outed her and he couldn't resist pushing a little. "Because you only need two, you see."

She knew exactly what he was doing. "Well," she retorted, not missing a beat, "I should hope so." She resumed her dealing.

He grinned and relented. "You'll be surprised to learn that I occasionally take a break from the revolution to play cards. And of course, to be of service to milady."

"Oh Branson," she said, shaking her head, "when are you going to realize that everything you do with me is in service to the revolution?"

Now it was his turn to be abashed, as he desperately tried to unhear what she just said. _Everything_ was such a broad word...

"Now, make your bet," she instructed.

"Hold on, hold on- I've barely looked at my cards."

"Something on your mind?" she inquired innocently.

"Yes," he answered. "Beating you." His deliberation lasted less than a minute. "Alright. I bet seven."

"But seven's the highest you can bet."

"So?"

"So it's the hardest hand to play." He did not appear to understand her point. "Why not bet six and make it at least a little easier on yourself?"

"You don't win as much if you bet six."

"If you bet seven, you probably won't win at all, unless you have an unbeatable hand, like four aces and four kings."

"What do _you_ bet?"

"I don't have to tell you. I just have to decide to take your bet or not."

"Well then, decide."

She considered her cards, moved them around in her hand, chewed on her lip, and ignored several pointed looks from her opponent. "I've decided," she finally announced, "that I'll take it."

* * *

><p><strong>November 1916<strong>

They were alone together in the garage. Again.

Today, though, he was legitimately trying to fix the clutch and she had been legitimately trying to schedule a trip to the printer to make more programs for the war benefit concert.

"Branson, can you drive me to the printer's? I have to get more programs made."

"When, milady?"

"How's tomorrow after lunch?"

"Of course, milady."

That fifteen-second exchange had taken place an hour and half ago. She had stayed, chattering, wandering around the garage, while he worked under the car. At last, he succeeded in taming the temperamental clutch and pulled himself out from underneath the motor. She came over to where he was, as he wiped the oil off his hands.

She noticed a book on the driver's seat and reached through the frame to pick it up. "What's this?"

"A book by James Joyce. _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_."

She threw him a look. "Thanks for that- I'd never have guessed." It was the closest Lady Sybil ever came to sarcasm. "Is it new?"

"Yes," he replied. "Just published in fact. It came in the post from Ireland two weeks ago."

"From whom?" she queried, sounding a little too interested.

"My brother, if you should know."

She turned smartly to him and retorted, "I should. Which brother?"

"My younger brother," he said, crossing his arms in so much disregard for class rules.

"Because the older one is too busy working and wrangling babies to do much else," she finished, parroting his rather harsh critique. "Which I suppose is fine enough. For _him_, that is."

He grinned at her. He liked when she needled him. "And here I thought Your Ladyship didn't listen to anyone.."

A funny expression came over her face. "My mother's 'Your Ladyship.' I'm just Sybil." That was a strange correction; it was obvious he was just teasing. He wondered what she meant by it, but she had already returned her attention to the book. "May I borrow this when you're finished?"

"Take it. I finished it last night."

She laughed. "Honestly Branson, I've never met anyone who can consume so many words in so little time. Don't you ever sleep?"

It was funny she should put it like that. Because lately...

"It says it's set in Dublin- that's where you're from, isn't it?"

"Tis."

"Did reading it make you homesick?"

He shook his head. "Quite the opposite. It made me feel like I were back there. For awhile anyway."

"Do you miss it ever?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. He never spoke about home, but then, he never spoke much to anyone except her. "I miss the way people talk. Not just that they speak as I do, but also what they say. The Irish are a very expressive people. They sing out, they laugh full. Love ya or hate ya, you'll know about it- they say what they think about everything."

A sly smile crossed her face. "I can't imagine."

_Oh, the things I think and haven't said to you..._

"Fair enough," he chuckled.

"Do you think you'll ever go back there?" Was that wistfulness in her voice?

_Not with this verbal cowardice, I'm practically a traitor to my country._

"Depends," was all he replied. The word was true enough.

He waited for the follow-up question: _"On what?"_

But he could see she dared not ask it.

How did her eyes always seem to match the color of the sky, when the color of the sky was not fixed. He was well aware, as he always was, that he shouldn't be looking her in the eye at all. Yet she was staring back directly at him. Finally, she spoke and broke the spell of possibility.

"I have to go. You don't mind if I take this?"

"Not at all."

"I'm not as fast a reader as you, but I'll try to finish it soon so we can talk about it while it's fresh in your mind. Maybe you'll tell me more about Dublin, what it's like there."

She left and he was alone in the garage. Again.


	3. Chapter 3: 1916 Part II

Note: Thank you for the kind reviews and for the Chapter 2 correction of Cora's title!

* * *

><p><strong> (still) November 1916<strong>

A week later, it was almost dusk and he was worried. She had told him yesterday she had finished_ Portrait_ and would come by the garage after breakfast to talk about it, if he weren't too busy that is. He told her there were no trips planned for the day. That seemed to please her very much, and she said she would try to think up an excuse to drive into Ripon so their conversation would not be disturbed. He had waited all day, with no sign of her, and now it was almost night. He was about to lock up for the evening when he heard footsteps on the gravel outside.

She appeared in the doorway looking tired and sad, not at all like her usual self, with the book in her hand. "I've come to return this," she said, handing it to him, "though I can't stay. I would have liked to discuss it, but I'm afraid I don't have the heart for it today."

"That's quite alright, milady," he answered. "But may I ask- is something wrong?"

"I lost another friend today. His name was also Tom."

He had never told her his first name.

"I'm sorry. Truly." He couldn't ask if there was anything he could do for her; he was not permitted to offer his comfort and she was not permitted to accept it.

"So am I." Her voice broke when she said it, and she looked at the ground until she found her composure. He didn't take it personally; he didn't think Lady Sybil was the type to like to cry in front of anyone. After a moment, she raised her head and in clear and steady speech said, "I wanted to make sure you got it back, seeing as it was a present from your brother."

"Thank you." She tried to muster a smile, but couldn't, and started to walk away. "Don't worry," he told her as she turned. " We can talk about Mr. Joyce some other time."

"Oh, well, about that..." She turned back towards him. "I have something to tell you," she began. "I'm going away for awhile."

_Away? Away where? For how long? For what? To see who?_ The scenarios started racing through his head so furiously he almost missed what she said next.

"I want to volunteer as a nurse. Cousin Isobel said she could secure me a spot at a training college in York."

_York. Thank God._

"When do you leave?"

"I don't have a date yet, but I hope as soon as possible."

Her words cut him a little, though he knew they were not meant to; she hadn't said them thinking of him, but that was precisely what hurt. They were almost always in sync with each other during these "chance" encounters; he knew that she knew, and she knew that he knew, what was happening while they pretended nothing was happening. It just felt in this moment that she was a far better pretender than he.

He was desperate for more details: how long would she be in York? what if she were assigned to hospital somewhere in London or in the east, far from Downton for the duration of this war which could last a decade for all they knew?

He asked none of them. "It's a wonderful thing you're doing, I think."

"It's something," she sighed. "I hate this war. So very much. Goodnight, Branson."

"Goodnight, milady."

He turned over her last words in his head as he locked up the garage and left, the copy of James Joyce in his pocket. The wan dusk light outside matched his mood; all the warmth was going out of the world. It was a short walk back to his cottage, but he took it slowly.

He did not hate the war.

True, he had not (yet) been called up and that certainly contributed to his opinion. But how could he hate the war when it had made possible all these feelings between them?

He was stalked by restlessness that was calmed only by her appearance in the doorway. He was elated to catch her staring at him when she thought he was not looking. They both lived for the brief seconds when he was allowed to offer his hand to help her down from the motor. She had started it this summer, almost two years exactly from the garden party, after he drove her home from Mrs. Crawley's. She had become closer with Isobel since Matthew had left, in part because Isobel adored Lady Sybil, but also because no one else from the family ever accompanied her. Which provided many convenient opportunities for them to be alone in public and for the faintest physical contact.

Like that night back in August when the air was thick and hard to breathe and the stars were out and he suspected she'd had a little too much wine with dinner.

"Drive slower, please," she directed. "What's the hurry? It's a beautiful night." She leaned back against the seat with a dreamy look on her face. She wanted to talk, but was too tired to speak, she wanted to him to talk to her.

"About what?"

"Tell me what you did before you came here."

"I drove a car in a different house."

"In Ireland?"

"That's right."

She heaved a dramatic sigh. "That's not an answer. I mean, what was your life like? What were you like?"

"I," he confessed with a wry smile, "was young and foolish, as young men with a bit of money in their pocket for the first time always are."

"Go on," she prompted, intrigued.

"I think I'll leave it there, milady."

She ignored him. "What do you mean by 'foolish'?"

"I'll not speak about myself, but in general, young men often foolishly waste their money and time on drink and girls, especially the wrong girls."

"Did you ever meet the right girl?" Such directness cloaked in a soft, lyrical voice was enough to stop his heart for a beat, which was surely the intended effect. Sometime between 1914 and now, Lady Sybil had learned to flirt.

"Not in Ireland, no."

"What about after?"

He raised his eyebrows and demured, "Milady is in good humor tonight."

"Are they always so easy to tell apart?" she pressed. "The wrong girls and the right girls?"

He opened his mouth, then abruptly shut it. God, she was brazen tonight! If he had wanted to, he could have stopped the car and tested that thesis. He was certain that the right girl, in a parked car on the deserted road back to Downton Abbey, in this mood and in this heat, might have behaved exactly like the wrong girls. The thing is, when he looked back, intending to give her a bit of a warning glance, he saw her face was earnest. Her question was sincere. How you do you know if you're wasting time on the wrong girl?

"I can't say," he answered slowly. "I'll let you know when I find out."

She didn't speak for the rest of the ride. When they arrived back at the house, he opened the door and offered his ungloved hand. Of late, he left the gloves on the seat when he drove her alone. She took it and stepped down to the gravel. He released. She didn't. Eyes lowered, her fingers closed around his hand and she dragged her thumb into his palm. It was a subversive move, a stone's throw from the front door, with the house all lit up and its occupants inside awake. He didn't care. He completed the communion and squeezed back.

He thought he would spend that night fighting off heated thoughts of a parked car and a beautiful night not lived, but when he closed his eyes, the only thing in his mind was the image of her hand in his.

_How do you know if you're wasting time on the wrong girl?_

He entered the cottage and threw Joyce on the table. It landed on top of the letter that had accompanied it from Dublin- a letter from his younger brother that was, nearly a month later, still unreturned.

_Tom-_

_Here's the book you asked for. I personally am not interested in Joyce and his quest for beauty in the world- I think he'd do well to use his words looking for freedom in Ireland._

_As for the family, not much to report, our cousin's body is still cold. I pass the cemetery every day on the walk to uni. Perhaps if you saw his stone (and Eamon's and Sean Barry's and Stephen McInness'... ) it'd better help you answer the question I keep asking: when do you plan to quit playing handmaiden to the English and join the fight for your country?_

_Frankie thinks there's a girl. I told him that's not the brother I know. I hope I know you still._

_Michael and the boys say hello and get the hell back here._

_-Liam_

Liam was 19, and even more militant than he was. At 19, he could afford to be. Liam had idolized him growing him, had followed his political interests and his advice to attend university. He and Liam had always been much closer than him and Frankie- Frankie of the wrangled babies. Frank had gotten married when Tom was 14, and since then, it had always seemed like Frankie was shaking his head at Tom and his grand plans- _you'll see, you'll see_.

Maybe Lady Sybil wasn't the only one who had grown up in the last two years.


	4. Chapter 4: 1916 Part III

**(still) November 1916**

She was there for a reason. He didn't know what it was, but she must have one. She had never come to the garage so late at night, so close to dinner, and never in her evening dress. He had seen her in finery before, but it was usually covered, at least in part, by a coat or shawl. She had worn a shawl here, but had discarded it on a sawhorse, as it was an intemperately mild night and the garage was stuffy and warm. He ruefully noted that the temperature of his own blood was several degrees above normal.

He couldn't stop staring at her. Of course, he had seen posh women before, but on her, all that finery seemed designed to make his mind _go there_. The tidy strips of silk holding back her hair begged to be unwrapped. The satin sash that draped lazily across her hip begged to be lifted. The path of jewels cascading down her chest begged to be followed. What would it be like, he wondered, if he lived a life where the seminal event of his day was sitting across the dinner table and admiring her? At this moment- this moment only- he was horribly jealous of every man who held that privilege. But what drove him to distraction was the fact that she seemed completely unaware of the effect she was having on him. Either she didn't realize how beautiful she was or she didn't care.

In this moment, there was nothing he wouldn't do, wouldn't give, if she would kiss him, let him get closer to her.

"I leave in two days. I can't quite believe it."

"Me either," he sighed. She was still standing there expectantly and he realized there was no place for her to sit in her fine dress; the work bench she sat on in her day clothes would not do for these delicate materials. He looked around for a canvas, but finding none, he decided instead to take off his jacket.

She started to protest. "Oh no, don't bother, I can-"

"I insist." He laid his jacket down on the bench, and held out his hand grandly. "Milady."

"Thank you," she smiled, playing along. But her touch was light, barely there, and it did not linger; she sat down taking both of her hands with her, somewhat abashedly, into her lap. So those were the rules of the game tonight. It was a stark reminder that the entreaties of her dress, her jewelry, her perfume were not for him. He stiffened a little, his hands went into his pockets. She saw it and flinched, aware that in this absurdist play, there were no neutral actions, only ones of affirmation or rebuke. "It's only two months," she said quietly.

"I know," he replied. "Are you nervous?"

"Yes," she admitted. "I would like to be good. I'd at least like not to be bad. I will be serious though," she vowed with resolve, "and work hard. I will be serious and I will try, even if I'm not as knowledgable or as talented as the others."

So that was the reason she'd come: for courage. It pulled at his heart; it was a big thing, to show vulnerability to another person. But he couldn't help think how bloody insane that upstairs world was to send _this_ woman, so bright and brave, into a crisis of confidence. "You're going to training college- a real school- just as you wanted," he reminded her gently. "You'll get the knowledge, you'll develop the talent- that's what it's for."

"But I'd venture a lot of the other girls will have been to school before, and they all certainly have occupations. What are my credentials? Experienced in idle chatter? Excels in embroidery and cheering men on during a hunt? Fluent in drawing-room French?"

He shook his head, batting away her self-criticism. "I went to school. You're cleverer than most of the girls I knew, and those girls went on to university. More important, you _are_ serious, you don't have to _try_ to be. You care deeply about what you're doing and you're doing it for the right reasons."

She leaned back on her hands, unconvinced. "Well, I thank you for saying that, even if I don't quite believe it."

"Alright, do you want the truth?" She nodded, but appeared to brace herself for what that truth would be- she obviously put much stock in his opinion. "The truth is, I know you're smart because I'm an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, pardon my language, and I wouldn't like you if you weren't. I don't talk to silly or stupid women."

She was shocked, but pleased with his proof. "Now that," she laughed, "I actually do believe."

He rested against the side of the car. "Chin up. They're lucky to have you. Don't forget that. If you do, just ask me and I'll remind you. Believe in yourself. I believe in you."

"Truly?"

"Completely."

She paused, sizing him up with a sideways look. "I will miss this," she confessed. "Having someone to talk to."

While they were alike in many ways, expression was not one of them. He was for the most part- for better or worse- an open book. She was introspective and secretive. She never let people read her feelings before they were fit to print, him included. He didn't know what she meant by that, so he brushed it off. "You'll be around lots of people- you said it was a full class. You'll have a roommate, maybe a study group."

"It's not the same." Her words were even, direct, as was her gaze. But he wasn't about to take the bait. If she had something to say, she would say it.

"Now, me on the other hand? I'll be here, bereft without you. I suppose I'll have to see if O'Brien knows how to play cards."

"Honeymoon variant?" she offered with a devilish smile.

"Oh God- ugh." He shuddered audibly and she burst out laughing.

"No, don't!" she amended, with a wave of her hand. "It's too awful. If the situation becomes that dire, write me and we'll play by post."

"How long would that take?" he wondered aloud. "It would be three days at least for every card."

"I'd be back well before we made it to twenty-one."

"Well, before_ I'd_ made to twenty-one, you mean," he teased.

Her face fell and she looked pained. "I wish... I wish I could write to you." She swallowed hard. "But you couldn't receive letters here from York, even if I asked someone else to write out the envelope and the people at the post office are so nosy, I wouldn't trust them either." That was unexpected. She had obviously put much consideration into the idea, evidence of how sincere her desire was. He wanted to tilt her face upward, force her to look at him. Since he could not do that, he knelt down on the floor in front of her and summoned his own courage.

_"What would you want to say to me?"_

That's what he wanted to ask, but they were interrupted by a loud cry outside. "Lady Sybil!"

"Oh, my God!" She looked up alarmed. "What is Carson doing out here?"

He shot up. "Apparently, looking for you," he replied. "Quick, give me my jacket."

She jumped up and handed it to him. She watched his hands fly to button it, wishing she could help. Instead, she nervously touched her hair. "What will we say?"

He didn't have time to answer before Mr. Carson appeared in the doorway. "Lady Sybil, what are you doing here at this late hour?" he demanded to know, casting a not-unincriminating look between them.

"Oh hello, Carson," she answered with artifice. She took two steps towards the car, daring to sneak a look at Branson as she did so. She was overcome with relief to see his jacket was buttoned, his hands were behind his back, and his gaze respectfully directed at the floor. "Well, it's just that I've lost my hairpin," she began artfully. "And I've looked everywhere upstairs and then it occurred to me I might have lost it in the car- I was fiddling with it the other day- and I'm sorry, I just couldn't wait. I know I shouldn't have bothered Branson-"

"No bother at all, milady. I know how important a hairpin is to you," he nodded, walking to the opposite side of the car. Carson stayed silent, judgment still not rendered. "As I was just saying, I would be happy to check the back for it." He opened the door on the right side as she watched him through the open window on the left. "Milady, I'm sorry- I don't see it," he told her, loud enough for Carson to hear.

"Oh wait- I think- I think I see a little glimmer..." She put her hands on the window frame and leaned in, slyly dropping the hairpin she was holding in her palm onto the floor.

"You're quite good at this," he whispered.

"I know," she returned, a conspiratorial smile on her lips. This was clearly Lady Sybil's territory. "Is that it there, Branson?"

"So it is!" He crawled out of the back and held it up triumphantly. "Here you are. Good catch, milady."

"Thank you, Branson. You've performed very well."

Carson looked between them once more, unsettled but not entirely suspicious. He decided to let the matter drop. "Lady Sybil, I'll escort you back to the house, seeing as it is dark out now and your parents will no doubt be wondering where you are," he said pointedly.

"Thank you, Carson." They started to exit, but as soon as they reached the threshold, Lady Sybil abruptly turned, almost knocking over Carson in the process. "Oh, I forgot my shawl," she announced, doubling back. Branson retrieved it and handed it to her. "You know me, always forgetting things." Out of view of Carson, she bestowed him with a victory grin and a wink. Then they were gone.

Tom Branson went back to his cottage, got lost in a book, and sometime just before daybreak, nodded off into a dreamless sleep, unaware that the gathering storm of his emotions was about to break.

* * *

><p>He never came in for tea in the afternoon. That's how he knew it was kismet. Not only was he never free in the afternoon, but he never fancied tea after noon. For him, tea was strictly for breakfast, ale with lunch (never in front of Mr. Carson of course), and whiskey after supper.<p>

_Yet..._

On this afternoon, all he craved was a cup of tea.

_But..._

Because he never drank tea in the afternoon, he was not amply supplied with it. He discovered, when he went to the kitchen cupboard in his cottage, that he was out of tea leaf. And at that point, he would have just forgone it, had his desire not been so strong.

_And so..._

He happened to find himself carrying his cup of tea through the hall that connected the servants' dining hall to the downstairs kitchen at the very moment she pulled a cake out of the oven and proudly set it on the table, to the delight and commendations of Mrs. Patmore and Daisy.

That coincidence of tea and cake, thank all the angels and saints, is how he realized he was in love.

_This is what I want._

Love was not a feeling; he had had the feeling, and she as well, he suspected. Love was _the __choice_.

It hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks. He almost dropped the saucer. He made a hasty escape to the back, leaned against the cool brick wall, took a deep breath of early-winter air. It felt like the earth had been set off its axis. Or perhaps it had been set on it, the world moving in a way that made sense for the first time in his life. Lo, his North Star.

A bloody cliche.

A bloody true cliche.

To all the writer and poets, whose sonnets and superlatives he'd mocked in his ignorance: he was sorry. Shakespeare was right.

In one instant, it had all been revealed to him. She was the only woman he ever wanted to know, he was certain she was the only one who could ever make him happy; she was, quite possibly, his only chance to ever truly be happy.

He wanted _her_.

More than freedom for Ireland. More than writing. More than travel. More than revolution. Yes, he still wanted them.

_But this is what I want above all._

To have tea and cake in the kitchen, our kitchen, in our house. To live with her. To marry her. At any cost- no price could be higher than the prospect of a life without her.

That was the answer to his brother's question. _I won't be coming back to Ireland until I convince her to come with me._

It occurred to him that humans have many natural immunities and perhaps the human heart protects itself from love which is not possible.

Before today, it had not been possible. What would they do, even if he confessed his love and she returned it? What would he do with this Lady who had never cooked in a kitchen, never made a bed, didn't even dress herself? What kind of life could he offer her? Sure, in the garage of Downton Abbey, his stories about seven people living in a four-room house in Ireland seemed droll. He suspected that would not last to the train station.

Today, thanks to that blessed cake, it had become possible. She was going to work, live away from her family in a small, spare room, cook her own meals, take care of herself, hang up her title- for a time, anyway. She was about to actually live the life he _could_ offer her- and then she could make her decision.

And he would know her heart because love is, after all, a choice.


	5. Chapter 5: York, 1916

**York 1916**

The next time he saw her after the kitchen revelation was when he loaded her suitcases into the car, as her mother and sisters waved goodbye.

As he steered the motor down the driveway, he glanced into the backseat and confirmed what he suspected. Soundless tears tracked down her face, ones she didn't bother to brush away. He didn't feel the need to speak; it was only after they passed the town limits of Downton, seeing that her demeanor had not improved, that he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Fine." He noted with a rueful smile that she was much more the strong, silent type than he was.

They drove almost the entire way in silence. Chin in hand, she looked out the window and watched the countryside fall away as the car rolled down the road. That was fine with him. He had his own emotions to contend with.

He had practiced his speech a hundred times last night. He would tell her that he loved her and if she loved him as well, he would be honored to marry her if she would have him. He would find a job in politics and she could pursue her interest in women's rights or nursing or whatever she wanted. It didn't have to be tomorrow, it could be on her timetable, but the offer was hers to take. And then their conversations would never have to end.

He always thought it best to be honest, even brutally so. It was bold, yes; late in the night, pacing the floor of his cottage, whiskey in hand, he felt emboldened. The darkness favored boldness. The dawn had crippled his courage.

_You can't be honest with her. What need has she of your honesty? On that note, what need has she of your hand?_ The men who went on the hunt and came to dinner could be honest with her. They could offer just love. He would need more. He had no money, no position, no prospects; two pocketfuls of ambition, sure, but all yet unrealized.

Maybe he shouldn't say anything.

The sign on the road announced that they had arrived in York.

* * *

><p>The university rose out of the afternoon fog, a monolith of stone and iron, with spires and towers that touched the sky. She looked out the window in awe. She saw students her own age walking around with books under arms, free to think what they like and say what they thought. She knew she wasn't a real university student, but she could pretend to be one for a little while. She could visit the library or hear a lecture. Maybe she would even find herself at a pub one night, her table caught in the middle of some rowdy impromptu debate about Home Rule and Charles Parnell (well, she <em>had<em> just been reading Joyce).

_Don't be ridiculous. You don't even know maths. You're only here because your family called in a favor._

"Branson," she spoke up, suddenly full of concern, as the car wound at a snail's pace around the narrow campus roads. "Maybe you should let me off here, away from the dormitory. I don't want the first impression people make of me to be that I can't carry my own bags."

Branson frowned. "But the hospital and medical school are all the way on the other side. And I don't think you could carry both your suitcases, milady. Besides, I'm supposed to see you to your room."

"Branson, _please_," she implored. "I don't want to walk in with a chauffeur. No offense, of course," she added quickly. "You know what I mean."

"No offense taken." He applauded her self-awareness, however impractical. Her stopped the car and turned to her. "What about a compromise? I'll drive you to the medical school campus and carry your suitcases to the outside of the dorm. You can take them into your room yourself."

That seemed to satisfy her and she sat back. "Alright. It's a deal." He tried to catch her eye, but she had turned her attention to the folder with her course schedule and information. He noticed she wasn't really reading the papers just nervously flipping through, shuffling and re-shuffling them (he knew she had pored over them so many times she had them memorized and by now, so did he; over the past week, she had recited the contents of each page to him- multiple times- in the garage). "It's Vale Hall, number 17."

"I know, milady," he replied with a smile. "I'm the driver, remember?"

"Sorry. Nervous tic," she admitted sheepishly. "Did you ever live away at school, Branson?" He shook his head. "What do you suppose it's like?"

"I'm sure the food is terrible and the beds are worse, but you'll love it," was his good-natured guess.

"Oh? Why's that?" Nerves aside, her mood had brightened considerably since they'd entered the university walls.

"You'll be free for the first time in your life. Freedom is the best thing for people like us."

She thought that curious- what did he mean,  
>"people like us"? She knew what sort of person he was- someone she aspired to be like- but she did not think them the same.<p>

"Once you have a taste of it, once you know you can do it, who knows what you'll want to do next?"

"Branson, what did you mean when you said 'people-"

He stopped the car. Vale Hall.

"We're here."

* * *

><p>He jumped out and went around to the trunk to retrieve the suitcases. He watched her step out of the car in slow-motion and take it all in, her face a mixture of excitement and uncertainty that he imagined were manifesting themselves internally as some combination of stomach flu and heart failure. At least that's how<em> he<em> felt.

Was he really going to do this?

But one look at her, taking her first tentative steps into this new world, with her neat little hat and endless determination, he knew there was no way he could not do it. _I'd marry you in a minute, Sybil Crawley._

"Ready?" she called back over her shoulder.

He walked toward her with a suitcase in each hand, but she didn't move. "Don't walk behind me," she said in a low voice, when he was within earshot. "Not here. I don't want to be that person here."

So side-by-side, they walked through the main gate that led to the medical campus. The front building had a board outside with fliers posted. The same one caught both their eyes at the same time.

"A forum on the Women's Peace Crusade," she read aloud. "What's that, I wonder?" She glanced over at him. "Of course _you_ know," she noted, with impressed exasperation.

"Have you ever heard of a woman called Mary Barbour?" he asked.

"No, I've not and I blame you," she teased. "You are responsible for my radical political education, are you not?"

"She started the Women's Peace Crusade. It's an anti-war movement, focused on the consequences of war on women and children."

"Huh." She spotted an extra flier and unpinned it, taking it with her. "I'd be interested to know more about that. " They walked on together, coming in view of the courtyard. He knew from the map that the dormitory was just on the other side. His heart quickened, but he tried to keep his voice calm.

"You should go to the forum and hear what's said," he encouraged. "Maybe even stand up and speak."

"Me? In a university debate? I don't think so."

"You've debated lots of times."

"I'd hardly call you humoring me in the garage 'debating.'"

"You did canvassing, didn't you?" he countered. "And what is canvassing?"

"Knocking on doors."

"And-?" he prodded.

"And trying to convince people to come around to your view," she conceded.

"How many doors do you think you knocked on? Where someone answered, that is?"

"Hundreds, probably, in total."

"By that count," he concluded, "Sybil Crawley might find she's the most experienced debator in the fresher class."

"Branson." She stopped short, with a pointed stare. "I think that's the first time you've ever called me by my name. _Just_ my name."

He felt his cheeks turn hot. "Uh, I'm sorry, I don't-"

"Don't be sorry," she said with a wicked smile that went right to his depths. "I quite liked it."

She walked ahead of him into the stone walls of the courtyard and was taken aback by what she saw. All the frivolous fantasies of women's lectures and pub debates vanished and she remembered why she was here, what had compelled her to come. These men were the same age as her, the same age as the students she saw walking with books under arms. How unfair life was to have scattered her generation so randomly. She wondered, twenty-odd years ago, did the angels line up all the babies in heaven and assign their fates to them-_ this one to Downton, this one to uni, this one to the Somme and maimed_. And still all luckier than many, like her other Tom.

He could see she was stricken by the amputees exercising in the yard. He wished he were a better person and could have put his own problems in perspective, but he had too much on the line to think of anything else.

What if he said nothing and she wound up posted at a hospital in London, where the need is surely the greatest, and where her rich Aunt Rosamund would scheme to introduce her to a nice doctor or captain or lord?

No, he had to speak up, and he had to do it now. As he himself had said just a few minutes ago, once she had her freedom, who knew what she would want next? This wasn't the ideal time, certainly, but he might not get another chance. He pictured himself tinkering with the car, waiting, hoping, every day that she would come home and pop into the garage like she used to. Two months would turn into two years and one night, he'd hear a car racing up the driveway. He'd run out to see her, returned to Downton, on the arm of some fancy-pants fiance. "Shattered" was much too small a word.

But what if he spoke up and she said no?

He probably should have considered the possibility of that outcome more than sixty seconds before he put it all on the line- his job, his future employment prospects in England. But since he hadn't, he decided there was no reason to start now.

Especially because it was_ now_.

They rounded the corner to the arched entrance. He watched as she reached for her orientation letter and, brow furrowed, deliberated its instructions. The wait- mere seconds, a minute at most- was excruciating, the longest of his life. He hoped to God he would only ever have to propose once.

"I have to check-in at the registar's office, but it sounds like I should be able to pick up my room key here." She refolded the letter and put it in her pocket. "That's that, then." She nodded toward the suitcases in his hands. "Thank you, I can carry them from here."

He set the suitcases down.

In another minute, both their lives could be changed. He supposed his would be, no matter how she answered.

He took a deep breath.

She turned to face him, tipped her head a little to the side, and offered him a sad, but familiar, smile. "It'll be hard to let you go..."

* * *

><p>He was completely numb as he walked swiftly back to the car, jumped in the cab, and started the motor. Mercifully, he couldn't remember it. It was like he blacked out. Like he had passed the threshold of humiliation and pain he could feel and still live, and some natural opiate had kicked in and erased her rejection. The last conscious thought he recalled was: <em>Take off your bloody hat, if you want her to see you as a man and not the bloody chauffeur.<em>

So much for that.

* * *

><p>Sybil managed to enter the hall, procure her dorm key from the resident assistant, and locate room 17 without any of her mental faculties. She must have recited her name, her course, made some pleasant chit-chat, but she had no recollection of it. Some reflexive part of her brain had taken control, allowing her to go through the motions, while her mind was consumed with a single thought.<p>

_What_ just happened?

She set down her suitcases, took stock of her room, and exchanged introductions with her roommate- Hazel, 25, from Sheffield, fiance in the army, arrived last night- all without really seeing or hearing. It was a full out-of-body experience; her physical form was in room 17 talking to Hazel from Sheffield, but she hadn't actually left the stone archway. She was still with Branson, an hour gone, still trying to process what he had just said.

It was only when she sat down on the flimsy, iron bed that she felt her realities start to rejoin.

Hazel came out of the bathroom with a hairbrush, a hint of a smile on her lips. "I saw you with a man earlier."

"What?"

"I passed you as I was coming back to the dorm. The other girls have all arrived, so I knew it had to be you. I would have offered to help with your suitcases, but I didn't want to interrupt."

"Oh."

"He's very handsome. _Very_." She threw a knowing glance at Sybil, but obviously did not see how much her new roommate did not want to be having this conversation. "And I don't usually take to towheaded men," Hazel noted, running the brush through her hair. "Ed, my fiance, has hair black as a crow's. He's not near as good-looking though. Does yours have green eyes?"

"Blue," Sybil said, barely audible. A one-word answer seemed easier than correcting Hazel's misconception. It occurred to her she wasn't sure she could have definitively stated the color of his eyes before this afternoon.

"Like yours!" Hazel realized. "Must have been the uniform that tricked me. Green, but not army, was it?"

"No. He's a chauffeur."

"Good occupation. Good money, more freedom than normal service. Did the family he works for let him use the car to drive you here?"

"Yes." It wasn't technically a lie.

"That's nice." Hazel set the brush down and checked her reflection in the mirror she had set up on the shared desk. Satisfied, she smiled. "I'm going to have dinner in town with some girls I met yesterday- want to come along?"

Sybil shook her head, thankful that she would soon be alone. "Thank you for the invitation, but I think I'll just stay in and unpack."

"If you're sure," Hazel responded. Sybil felt her shoulders shake, as a little involuntary laugh escaped. How funny, the idea that she would be sure! She covered her face with her hand, which prompted Hazel to rush to Sybil's bed and sit down beside her. "You poor dear! You look like you've been shipwrecked! Cheer up," she said, putting her arm around Sybil's shoulders. "It's only two months. I'm sure he'll come to visit. You said it only took an hour to drive here."

She noticed Sybil's left hand was bare and instantly regretted going on about her unattractive fiance and Sybil's handsome bachelor. "You have nothing to worry about. I'm sure he's missing you like mad right now. And you know, you can bring him here, if you like," Hazel offered. "I don't mind. I have a friend from Sheffield who's just down the hall. I can make myself scarce."

Sybil was touched by Hazel's show of empathy and solidarity towards her, even if misplaced, but that last offer- sneak a man into a women's dorm for the purpose of... what exactly? Obviously, she knew _what_- it wasn't for a bedtime story- but is that what girls really did if they weren't under lock and key at Downton Abbey? Is that what the girls Branson knew did?

She suddenly felt very naive and very stupid. All she wanted in the world was to be alone, and when Hazel stood up and announced she was leaving, it felt like the first break Sybil had had all day.

* * *

><p>It was the way he snapped when she used the word "flattered."<p>

She had known what he was going to say before he said it. _Of course she knew._ How could she not? Every moment, look, word, touch that had inspired his confession- she had lived it too. She had tried to tell him that she wasn't ready to hear it. Not yet. Not today.

But he had barreled on, insistent- so very like him, she realized with a sigh as she lay on the thin, wiry mattress in the dorm, staring at the ceiling. He told her he would devote every minute to her happiness. And she had been struck dumb. Like she was on stage, playing a scene in Act One, and the other actor had just jumped to a line in Act Four. And by then, her character had been killed off. So really, what could she say?

_Very naive and very stupid._

Didn't he realize that no one had ever said that- or anything like that- to her? That the most a man had ever asked her was to dance? So she had fumbled around in her brain, for what she had heard Mary tell her hundreds of suitors, or what Aunt Rosamund said when she retold her war stories of seasons past, or even the remedial instructions Mama gave to Edith about how to handle these sorts of situations with men and she had said "flattered."

Not a word she used, of course, but it was kinder than most (certainly most of what she'd heard Mary say). He hated that she said it, that she would speak so falsely to him, and promptly dispatched her words. Left without a comeback, she just looked down.

_"If your family casts you off..."_

How could she even think about that? She had just left the nest, to use her mother's phrase, after lunch- now he wanted her disowned by dinner?

And what if- just what if- she had said yes. Get back in the car, drive to Gretna Green, and to hell with her plans to be a nurse?

"What did you expect me to say!" she exclaimed out loud, furious with emotion.

She hadn't expected him to say he wouldn't be there when she got back. God, no. She surprised herself with how quickly and forcefully she had rebuffed the idea in the moment, given that his words- "_every minute to your happiness"_- were still ringing in her ears.

No one had ever told her he loved her. No one had ever loved her liked that. In all the parlor conversations she had been privvy to about the transactional value of potential matches- what this man had, what that man could do- no one ever mentioned happiness. Yet that was his offer to her. He would make something of himself and he would make her happy. Her family would mock that modest proposal, but it touched her deeply. And she had no doubt on either count.

She was faced with the choice of two unfathomable futures. She realized she would have to come to terms with one of them at some point. Probably some point soon.

But not, thank God, for a few more months.

* * *

><p>"Branson?" she had called after him after their awkward parting. He stopped. She winced to see the faintest hope course through his body before he turned around. "I'll see you in two months then," she said softly, "when you come to pick me up?"<p>

He looked truly torn, and that hurt, but she knew he would not lie to her. Finally, he sighed and replied, "Right, milady."


	6. Chapter 6: On the Eve of 1917

_Note: names/titles are obviously key in a cross-class relationship. I've tried to use titles when it reflects the perspective of the character speaking/thinking, but I assume the audience is on a first-name basis with the Crawley family. As for Branson, we know there's a specific moment when he becomes Tom in the show (although to himself, of course, he's still Tom)._

_Thanks as always for the nice reviews! _

* * *

><p><strong>December 1916<strong>

Neither of them had considered the calendar.

Her two-month course contained Christmas and New Year, a fact he was alerted to when he overheard Lady Grantham and Lady Edith discussing it in the car en route to Ripon two weeks after he had dropped her off in York.

"Her course lets out at noon on Christmas Eve?" Cora exclaimed, after Edith finished relaying the contents of Sybil's latest letter. "What sort of a school is this?"

"A school for nurses, Mama," Edith pointed out. "Hospitals don't shut their doors because it's Christmas."

"She's not a nurse, she's a trainee, and a volunteer one at that. A day off to spend Christmas at home with her family is the least they can do."

"She says she has to be back at course the morning of December 26th."

"What about New Year?"

"She says the nursing students are working the party for the wounded at the hospital. She says the men are all very excited and it will be wonderful to see them cheered up."

Cora was not cheered up. "But she'll miss the Servants' Ball!"

"Won't be much of a ball this year, with the war on," Edith retorted.

Edith watched as her mother assumed her no-nonsense face and commanded evenly, "I want Sybil home for New Year."

Up front and out of view, Branson smiled. _Good luck with that._

"Not likely!" Edith scoffed, channeling his thoughts. "I think you should be satisfied with Christmas and say no more about it. You know how Sybil can be. Especially when she's up on her moral mountaintop."

"Be satisfied that the British army hospital will let me borrow my child on Christmas Day? To use your words- not likely," Cora shot back. Edith gave her a look. "What?" Cora asked.

"_Mama_. It is only two months. And so far, it's only been two weeks."

Cora sighed. "I know. But the house just isn't the same without her."

Amen to that.

He had recovered, for the most part, from the disastrous proposal in York. At some point, the pain and humliation subsided enough for him to rationalize the outcome: she hadn't said no. In fact, the one time- the only time- she used the word (forcefully, he was sure to note) was when he promised to be gone from Downton, and her life, before she got back. And technically, he hadn't been turned down; he had realized with a laugh on the drive home that at no point in his much-rehearsed speech, unravelled into ludicrous stream-of-consciousness rambling, did he remember to actually ask her to marry him. So he had some confidence and optimism left. Maybe he too had been infected with this 'season of hope and miracles' malarkey... so much so that he had started to catch her, every once in awhile, drifting into his thoughts.

That didn't mean he was ready to see her again. The prospect of an hour-plus car ride home, alone, in all its awkwardness, made him break out in a cold sweat.

But luckily, Lady Edith came to the rescue. "Mama? I have an idea. I can pick up Sybil on Christmas Eve," she volunteered excitedly, "and I'll drive her back on the 26th."

"Edith-" her mother warned.

"What? It'll be fun! A Crawley girls' road trip."

"A road trip?" Cora repeated, aghast. "Absolutely not. And your Papa wouldn't hear of it!"

"Mama, really-"

"Besides, what about Branson? He cares for this car, as he's employed to do, and I'm sure he would like to be able to carry out his duties without interference from you."

Edith sensed an opening. If Papa were an absolute no, her mother wouldn't have brought Branson into it. "Branson doesn't mind, do you Branson?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm happy to do whatever Your Ladyship thinks is best."

Cora looked at her daughter with bemusement. "Branson is very diplomatic." "_Spoken like a true politician_." How long ago that was!

"Branson, would you be worried about Lady Edith making such a long drive all by herself?"

"That I _can_ answer, milady. I would not. Perhaps I'm biased because I trained her, but I think she's a careful and conscientious steward of the road." _With a lead foot and not the best reflexes_, but he left that part out. He wanted to see her win this one. True, it served his own purposes, but he had come to like Lady Edith. She didn't have Mary's beauty or Sybil's ebullience, but she wasn't the dour dullard she was presumed to be. He could believe she had her own charms and was surprised to learn she was an avid reader (albeit of novels) and rather a decent conversationalist.

Edith beamed. "Thank you, Branson, for that honest and thorough report."

"Alright, Edith- you may pick up Sybil _if_ your father allows it. And Branson, you take the day off. It would be silly to have the chauffeur work the holiday without the car."

* * *

><p><strong>December 24, 1916<strong>

Sybil couldn't stand still, as she waited on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the medical campus. She had sent word back home to be picked up at noon, but as today was a classroom day, not a practicum day, the instructor had let them out a little early. She waited on the curb with her small suitcase, shifting from one foot to another. She was anxious; she had no idea what she would say to Branson or what Branson would say to her about their last conversation. But she was also excited; she had so much to say about school, her classes, what she was learning, what it was like working (truthfully, mostly just watching at this point) at a real hospital. She had made a conscious decision to put his offer on the shelf and commit herself to her studies and her work. She was busy from dawn until the moment her head hit the pillow, but it had paid off: she was a standout in the trainee class. Her teachers admired her tireless work ethic and perfectionist tendencies; she wasn't afraid to ask questions, careful to always make sure she really understood the lessons and instructions.

The veteran nurses and doctors were knowledgable, and some of her classmates were quite smart and interesting, but even at a university, there was no one she met who she enjoyed talking to as much as Branson. Well, she hoped they were still talking.

Then the moment of truth arrived: she saw the car come around the corner.

Edith spotted Sybil on the curb and yanked the brake. The motor jerked to a stop. "Oops," she said under her breath. "Hello, Sybil! Come on, jump in!"

_He left. Oh my God, he really left._

"What are _you_ doing here?" Sybil practically cried out.

"Picking you up." Edith was miffed by the reception. "Nice to see you too, sister."

_He's gone. He's gone and I have no idea where._

"I was expecting Branson is all." The words spilled out of her mouth. "Has something happened to Branson?"

"Yes, he got a day off because I took the car," Edith answered, irked. "Honestly, what is the matter with you?"

Sybil almost collapsed with relief. "He's still at Downton then?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't he be?"

Sybil had recovered enough to know she needed to make up an explanation. "I spend all day treating horribly wounded soldiers," she informed Edith, opening the car door and climbing in. "The ones who were lucky enough to make it to the hospital, that is. It makes my blood run cold to think of any man we know being sent off to war, that's all."

"Oh." Edith softened a bit. "I'm sorry. I should have been more... kind."

Sybil smiled. "You were kind enough to come get me." She leaned over and kissed her sister's cheek, then added with flourish in her best Mary voice, "Thank you, you're a darling."

Edith laughed. "You've been away too long. She would never say that to me!"

* * *

><p>The garage was deserted when Edith pulled the car in. Sybil craned her neck to see the cottage: the windows were dark. <em>I wonder where he is<em>?

Branson lay on the bed at the Grantham Arms, paging through one of the books he had bought with his morning off. He had told Mr. Carson that since Lord Grantham had given permission for Lady Edith to pick up Lady Sybil in York on the 24th and then return her on the morning of the 26th, he would take Lady Grantham's generous offer of a day off and travel to have Christmas dinner with a family friend.

In truth, Christmas would be meat pie and ale downstairs and reading in a rented room. He hated wasting money on a hotel, but he just wasn't ready to face her yet.

The soonest she could escape- _alone_- was after Christmas lunch. Serving themselves had left all the Crawleys in need of a nap before Christmas dinner- even her mother who, so thrilled to have her back, had not left her since she'd arrived. Sybil peered out her window and saw the garage was still dark. She put on a sweater and went to leave, then abruptly turned back and sat down at her desk, scrawling a quick note on a piece of stationery.

She walked down to the cottage and knocked softly on the door. No answer. The window shades were drawn. Disappointed, she slipped the envelope under the door. She shivered and pulled the sweater tighter around her. This winter was colder than she remembered.

* * *

><p>The morning of the 26th was frigid and bright. The car was gone when he arrived back at his cottage, where he found a envelope. Inside, on plain white paper, a note:<p>

_Branson,_

_Happy Christmas. I'm sorry I couldn't say it in person._

_- SPC_

* * *

><p>The evening of the 30th was dark and dreary. She returned to her dorm after her first full-day practicum at the hospital, where she found a small, plain brown package with no return address outside her door. Inside, a copy of Florence Nightingale's <em>Suggestions for Thought to Searchers after Religious Truths- <em>a book which she knew had inspired John Stuart Mill to take up the cause of women's rights.

There was no card, but one page corner had been folded over and this passage marked:

_"People do not go into the company of their fellow-creatures for what would seem a very sufficient reason, namely, that they have something to say to them, or something that they want to hear from them; but in the vague hope that they may find something to say."_

Indeed.

And with that, they were friends again.


	7. Chapter 7: York, 1917

_*note on the last chpt: Edith driving and the calendar/Christmas day off (I think) are straight from the show- Edith offers to drive Sybil to York in 02x01. And__ I haven't seen it since it aired, but I think Sybil does leave in November 1916? If anyone knows better, please correct me._

* * *

><p><strong>York, 1917<strong>

Sybil couldn't stop beaming as she walked back from the classroom. It was four o'clock, already dark, and far below freezing. Her mood could not have been more at odds with the atmosphere. Her pace, quick and purposeful, pumped her blood and warmed her inside her coat. She walked with _accomplishment_. What a truly excellent feeling!

She reached the stone archway- yes, that one. She couldn't walk through it without thinking about him and she had to walk through it several times a day. So present was Branson to her in this place, he might as well have chiseled his name into the wall. She wondered if she would ever tell him how not a day went by without... yes, York was strangely close to the garage. For the first time all afternoon, she felt a little deflated, realizing that she had no one to share her news with.

Sybil entered the dorm and picked up her mail. There were several envelopes from Downton, but none without a return address. There were letters from Edith, Mama and Mary- and she opened them in that order, the order of desirability. Edith's letters were always perfunctory:_ Dear sister, this, this, that, hope you're well, love Edith_. Mama, bless her, always included a cursory question about her classes- was she doing well and was she learning a lot?- but she knew Mama was just fishing for gruesome details to gauge how much of her innocence her daughter was losing.

She relished Mary's letters. Mary never had to ask about school or nursing because Mary never would, and Sybil understood that and never held it against her. She was closer to Mary than anyone in the world, even Branson. For every hour of the day she spent into the garage, there were four or five or ten hours she spent into Mary's room. When she was younger, she used to sleep in Mary's bed at least twice a week- giggling into the pillow as Mary performed perfect and devastating impressions of people they knew and caustic monologues about the monotony of manor life. Sybil knew her eldest sister loved her more than anything in the world and would take a bullet (or more likely, fire one) to protect her. Their bond was unbreakable and there were no secrets between them.

Until now.

If it weren't Branson, she could have talked to Mary about it. Mary wouldn't approve, of course, but she would advise and above all, listen. But it was Branson. She knew Mary would never betray her confidence, but she didn't want to make her complicit. Because what they were doing was wrong. Not that they had _done_ anything, but it was wrong, all of it was wrong. That's why cards were just initialed and books were posted from nowhere. But still, just keeping a secret from Mary felt bad, like a lie.

Contrary to most people's goody-goody impression of her, Sybil was incredibly sneaky, which she considered an essential survival tool at Downton Abbey. She lied to parents, especially her father, often and with ease. But only once had she ever dared involve Mary in her deception.

"Come_ on_," Sybil pleaded. She was dressed in her riding outfit, the horses were saddled and ready to go; all she needed was Mary to take her. But Mary was seated at their father's writing desk, pen lifted in contemplation, with very few words on the paper.

"Be quiet," Mary snapped. "I'm almost finished." Sybil sighed and flung herself on the chair in exasperation. "Just a few more minutes!."

"You said that a half hour ago!" Sybil reminded her.

"Don't be such a baby!"

"Don't be so _stupid_," Sybil threw back. "Agonizing over every word to some silly boy! Honestly, it's so tiresome."

"_You're_ so tiresome. You can't understand. You're only nine."

"And you used to be fun. Before you turned fourteen," Sybil pouted, punching at the pillow. "Remember when we used to pretend we were cowgirls, living on our own in Mama's country?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Women don't marry horses." Mary went to back to her sentence and uttered a shriek of displeasure. "Damn!"

Sybil's mouth fell open, shocked and impressed. "Does Papa know you swear?"

"The ink's bled and it's ruined!" She shook her head, furious. "I'll have to start again."

Sybil stood up and implored, "Can you _please_ do it when we get back?"

Mary whipped around in the chair. "Would you like to ride with old Mr. Martin on your old pony?" she challenged. "No? Then pipe down." Sybil was crestfallen. "Why don't you wait outside? It'll be easier without you bothering me."

Sybil rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"But don't you dare start off without me," Mary warned. "Papa will have my head."

"I won't. I promise."

Sybil went outside into the sunshine and mounted her horse. She turned him around in the driveway a few times and then, feeling that she had waited a proper eternity, kicked him and started off. "Lady Sybil! Lady Sybil!" she heard Mr. Martin call after her. "Lady Sybil, you're not allowed to ride on your own!"

"Mary is right behind me!" she shouted back.

Of course, that would be the day when the horse startled as she took the jump she was not supposed to take, and fell and broke her arm. The doctor was so worried that it hurt, but the pain was not nearly as bad as the fear that gripped her about what Papa would do when he found out. She braced herself when he came into her room that night, but he only kissed her on the head, full of concern. She was so happy to have escaped punishment! When he left and put out the lamp, she slipped out of bed and went to Mary's room, like she always did, to discuss the day's events and to celebrate another victory over authority.

The door was locked, unusually, and Sybil used her free hand to knock. But when Mary opened the door, Sybil knew immediately not everyone had escaped punishment that day.

"Don't ever lie to me again." The door slammed in her face and the lock turned back. Sybil went back to her room and started to cry. But as she contemplated the unthinkable future filled with Mary's hatred and only Edith and Pharaoh as companions, it occurred to her that Mary had not told. Mary had taken a punishment she did not deserve to spare her little sister.

The next day she waited for Mary in the hall outside her room and when Mary came out, Sybil rushed toward her and wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'll never lie to you again, I promise. _Really_ promise, I swear it," Sybil sniffled. "And I'll tell Papa the truth after breakfast and he'll know it was my fault not yours."

"Don't worry about Papa, I can handle him."

Sybil looked up at her. "Don't hate me, Mary. I couldn't bear it."

"You silly thing, I could never hate you," Mary replied, tousling her hair. "Besides," she added, "then I would have to start liking Edith."

Sybil smiled, remembering the relief her nine-year-old heart felt in that moment. Life at nine had been pretty uncomplicated. Mary had reminded her of their conversation in Papa's library sometime around her fourteenth birthday-_"Do you understand now? Do you understand why I couldn't explain to you then why, one day, a letter from a boy would be the paramount desire in your life?"_ They had laughed. Mary was nineteen, with black eyes, dark curls and swan-like grace, charms and confidence overflowing; Sybil, unsure and still in her awkward phase, confessed she didn't think she would ever catch up to Mary. "Oh _you_," Mary reprimanded lightly. "I don't worry about you. Now, Edith..."

Revisiting that conversation in her head sparked an idea. She put her latest letters from home in a box and pulled her exam out of her bag. Her trainee class had just passed the one-month mark and had been given a comprehensive test of everything they had learned so far. The instructor had handed it back to her with a "Well done, Miss Crawley." It was a perfect score. Not one missed answer! She had studied hard (and lucked out because there were no questions on the staph infection lesson, which she had fallen asleep re-reading) and she thought she would never stop looking at the "100% - A." She wanted to share it. She had to share it.

Her roommate Hazel had been granted a leave day in order to attend the wedding of her brother, who was about to be sent to the front in France. "Hazel, could I ask a favor?" Sybil inquired that night. "Could you post a letter for me from Sheffield?" She handed her the envelope, which was blank.

"From Sheffield?"

"And I'll need you to make it out. Here's the information," Sybil continued, handing her a piece of paper that read "Mr Tom Branson" followed by an address in Downton- an address which Hazel knew from the letters Sybil received to be her own.

"Of course." Hazel smiled and did not ask any more questions.

* * *

><p>Several days later, at breakfast, Mr. Carson was handing out the post. "There's a letter for you, Mr. Branson."<p>

"From Sheffield," Thomas remarked. "Who do you know in Sheffield?"

"No one," he replied truthfully.

O'Brien leaned in to Thomas. "It's a woman's hand that wrote it."

He leaned into O'Brien. "Can you blame her?" he winked. "I couldn't and wouldn't try." The whole table started to snicker and O'Brien scowled at him, the nosy cow. He pushed out his chair and left the kitchen. When he was outside of the prying eyes of the terrible twosome, he opened the letter which he was indeed curious about. There were several pages hinged together. At the top of the first page, it read:

Mid-course Examination  
>S. P. Crawley: 100%- A.<p>

"That's my girl," he said under his breath. 

He walked to his cottage and hid her exam in a locked drawer. _Mid-course. One month to go._


	8. Chapter 8: York Once More

**End of January, 1917**

He saw the change in her immediately.

She was sitting on her suitcase, reading a book. _Sitting on her suitcase._ Shockingly cavalier behavior- it was no small rebellion to put purpose ahead of propriety- that, while not at all noticeable in these student environs, would have caused a proper scandal back at Downton. Purpose ahead of propriety- a dangerous precedent for Lady Sybil to set. His head cautioned not to presume too much from it, but his heart couldn't the resist the lure of possibility.

Two months apart had dulled the humiliation he felt after the aborted proposal, quieted his anxieties about what would happen next. He had spent them ascetically- _work, read, write, sleep_- and he had to admit, life free from the throes of love had left him feeling clear-minded, alert, and in control. He wasn't sure what he planned to do next- if he would stay at Downton and wait, at least for a little awhile, or if he would make a quick exit and return to Ireland. Of course, his decision would depend on what her reception was like. But regardless, he thought as the car sped along towards York, of what would happen when they saw each other or of the ultimate outcome, whatever it might be, he was pleased, _so pleased_, that they had both taken the first steps back to friendship.

* * *

><p>She had tried and failed to lose herself in her novel. She was attempting to re-read the first sentence of the next chapter for the fourth time when she heard the familiar sounds of the Renault come around the corner. She looked under her lashes and her heart skipped a beat (yes, she really felt the perceptible pause of her blood) when she saw him jump down from the cab, realizing she hadn't recognized him by face or voice, but by the way his body moved. She put on what she hoped was a brave face and rose to meet him.<p>

The same electric sapphire eyes, the same impeccably-parted hair. They stared directly at one another now, even longer than was comfortable, which seemed only appropriate, given what had passed between them. He was the first to smile, she the first to speak.

"Hello, Branson."

"Hello, milady." She smiled back at him- a small, shy curl of her lips with little nervous blush as an accompaniment. Her eyes seemed full of words she didn't say, but he didn't care. It was just so good to have her back again. "Ready to go home?" he asked. She nodded and accepted his hand into the car.

She chewed on her thumbnail while he loaded her suitcases into the trunk. They had survived the first looks, first words, first touch. So far, so good. Now, the ride home. Would he ask her what she was thinking about his proposal? She had tried not to think about it. Why had she taken all that trouble to mail her exam to him? She couldn't explain it, she just had to do it. What if he said he had reconsidered, wanted to quit and move back to Ireland? What would she say- _what wouldn't she say_- to stop him.

He came around to the front, climbed in, and started the motor. As the car lurched forward, she cast a look back and saw, probably for the last time in her life, the stone archway. Watching it move farther away in the distance filled her with unexpected emotion. _That's where I was proposed to._ It only occurred to her now that a truly monumental event had taken place in her life. It was one of a handful of life cycle cairns, along with marriage and becoming a parent, and the premiere event for a young woman. An event she and Edith used to act out in their bedrooms as children and Mary precociously discussed with their mother while plaiting her hair. None of them knew it had happend to her. Someone had asked her to be his wife, until death do them part.

Why, to pick a person out of all the people in all the world, and to ask that person alone to share the rest of life with you- that required a remarkable show of faith. From anyone, of any country, of any station, from the poorest pauper to the richest lord. It's not something someone would ask lightly. And someone had asked her. Someone thought she was worthy of that ask and up to the task it entailed.

Yes, a very big thing had happened to her here.

She hadn't thought about it like that before because it was _them,_ and it was Branson, and he was passionate and impetuous and said things as quickly as they came into his head. She had not thought of him as someone who had carefully and contientiously deliberated the person he wanted to spend his life with, have his children with, and decided that person was her. It terrified her and thrilled her at the same time.

A word, in a familiar lilting accent, interrupted her relevation. "So?"

Her heart fell. _Surely he didn't expect..._

"So?" she repeated weakly.

"So, how was it?" he prompted, unaware (obviously) of what was unfolding in her mind. "What did you learn and what was it like?"

Sybil clutched her heart with relief. "Goodness, there's so much to say, I don't know where to start!"

"That's a good sign, means it went well," he replied, grinning over his shoulder. "How about you start with this: what do you know now that you didn't know when I dropped you off?"

She considered for a minute, then answered with confidence, "I know how to change the dressings of a new amputee while he's screaming in pain." Branson was appropriately shocked. "It's true. The first time I had to do it was last week. His leg had been-you're not squeamish, are you?"

"No," he answered, then amended, "I don't think so anyway. Try me."

She launched into the story, more animated than he had ever seen her, except for perhaps in the early years during election time. "He was hit by a shell. His lower leg was removed at the front and his thigh had some damage, but doctors were hoping it would heal- then he could keep the knee. Anyway, we had do these practicums, where a few trainees would be shadowed by a nurse and have to demonstrate various volunteer tasks, like dispensing medicine, drawing blood, changing bandages. He was the patient when it was my turn. He was very bad off. The bandages around his stump were already soaked red, but I wasn't scared by that. I knew what to do. But the second I touched him, he screamed. No, _shrieked_."

"Oh God," he grimaced.

She nodded vigorously. "I couldn't even recreate it for you. It wasn't a human sound- it was like an animal. The worst sound I've ever heard! I was so startled, I almost jumped back. The supervising nurse was glaring- _glaring_- at me. So I took a deep breath and started in. Obviously, it was all matted and stuck- well, I don't need to explain, I'm sure you can imagine. Mind you, he's still shrieking and twisting in the bed. I can see my hands are trembling and the nurse is shouting at me- '_Hurry up! There are fifty other patients that need treatment_!' It couldn't have taken more than ten minutes, but my God, I didn't think I would ever finish."

_Sweet Mother of Christ._ He supposed he had thought of volunteer nurses as fluffing pillows and filling water glasses. "Truly, I don't think I want to imagine what that would have looked like, a man with half a leg, blood and bone," he shuddered. "And you say you _weren't_ scared?"

"Oh no, I'm not scared by that," she brushed off. "I know what to do with a wound, the procedures, how to treat it. It's probably not unlike you with an engine. It's um..." she searched for the word, "_mechanical. _Locate the source of the problem and try to fix it."

He let out an incredulous laugh. "That's an undeserved comparison, to say the least. If cars bled, I'd not be a chauffeur."

"But Branson, I have knees and so do you," she impressed. "I can't be afraid of what's inside me, even if I can't see it, can I? Besides, if you were hurt, wouldn't you want someone to help you?"

"I would very much want someone like you to help me," he retorted. "But someone like me? That's probably help I could do without." He half-turned in his seat. "All that is to say that you and your work are very admirable."

"I don't know about that. The nurse gave me a proper dressing-down afterward."

"What on earth for?"

"You can't hesitate like that, Miss Crawley!" she mimicked. "The patients look to you for how to respond: if you respond to their injuries in a calm and can-do manner, they will respond to them in kind. But if you're scared, then they'll be scared. It'd do you well to keep in mind that they- not _you_- are in pain. To dwell on your own emotions in that moment is selfish and self-absorbed and if you are like that, then you cannot be one of us_._"

He was reflexively offended on her behalf. "That sounds overly harsh to me."

"Not at all- she was absolutely correct."

"So what happened?"

Sybil settled back with a satisfied smile and shrugged. "I became one of them."

* * *

><p>The hour passed as fast as any ever had and then she saw home.<p>

"Branson?"

"Yes?"

Her mother, Mary and Edith were already in the driveway, waiting for her. "Nevermind. I'll tell you later."

* * *

><p>Sybil had intended to just take a walk, but as always, her wandering wound up taking her to the garage. She saw him in the dusky light, shirt-sleeves rolled up, working on the engine. The door was cracked open and she peeked inside.<p>

"What's the prognosis?"

He grinned at her, in that way that he only ever did here, in their secret parallel life. "She'll live." He lifted an eyebrow. "I can't believe they let you out of their sights your first night back."

"I needed a walk." She rolled her eyes. "You know."

He did. "Is it hard to be back here?"

She tossed her head a little and looked away, thinking. "It's- it's not so much that it's hard to be here," she finally said, fingering the tools on the table. "It's more like, it's hard not to be _there, _do you know what I mean?"

"I do."

"It's so different. Kind of a shock really, to realize I can't just come and go as I please."

He threw her a disbelieving look. "Oh, can't you?"

This time she grinned in that way she only ever did in the garage. "Not _all_ the time."

"You seem happy though." His words were uncharacteristically timid.

"I am."

"Getting a post at the hospital in town. Close to home."

_Ah._ She was quiet for a minute then asked suddenly, "Do you ride?"

"Horses?"

"No, elephants. Yes, horses."

"Never in my life."

"I love it. I don't do it as much as I used to. But I still remember the first time I went on a horse. I wanted to be just like Mary, with her smart outfit and shiny boots, and I would ride very fast and come home all dirty and exhilarated like she did. My first time on a horse, our old groomsman- Mr. Martin, who was at least a hundred years old- held onto the reins and walked me around the circle, over and over, slow as molasses. It was not at all like Mary. But then one afternoon, he said I could cantor around the circle myself if I liked. That was also not at all like Mary, but it _was_ amazing, _exhilarating_, to me anyway, at the time."

He looked quizzically at her and she frowned- this was obviously a dubious parable. She had to say more. _Just say it outright! Why can't I just say it?_ "It doesn't mean I never wanted to run or jump," she rambled on, unable to be less than obtuse. "Of course I did. But we spend so much time _wanting_ things, sometimes it's nice to enjoy getting them, _having_ them. At least for a little while." She looked at him earnestly and asked, "Do you know what I'm saying?"

"I think I do."

She was unconvinced. "I mean, I wouldn't have been content to trot around in a circle for the rest of my life, but for that _moment_-"

_Sybil._ "I know," he affirmed.

She remained there, suspended in the silence but for the muted whizzing of the lamps, to see if she could find any more to say. Finally, she settled on, "I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"I'll be here."


	9. Chapter 9: Christmas 1917

**Christmas 1917**

1917 came and went and just as quickly, it was Christmas. All of Yorkshire seemed sodden with the sadness of wartime, the bare tree branches weighed down as much by sorrow as by snow.

They had had many conversations over the course of the year, none of which were consequential except for a few where they had made memories of each other, although that was not (yet) noteworthy.

It was after nine when he put on a coat, lit a lamp and started off for the driveway. As he walked, he recalled some of those conversations, the words that had comprised the year.

There was the afternoon in April when she had nearly run into the garage, flushed with excitement, to say she had assisted in a surgery, a real one, and it was amazing. Well, she hadn't done much more than hold a basin at the end of the table, and only because two of the professional nurses were home sick with stomach virus, but she had seen a beating hear_t,_ "_a real beating heart, Branson! So delicate and intricate, everything connected, everything with its own function, all working in unison. I can't describe how perfect it was, like a living, beating symphony!" _She said she told the doctor afterward that if he ever needed an additional assistant, no matter how menial the task, to please ask her. And she had mused breathlessly about what it would be like to work as a surgical nurse, in a real O.R. at a city hospital, because of course country hospitals weren't equipped with those types of sophisticated facilities.

She had asked him then, did he think medicine could ever be political? He asked what she meant by that and she had replied that whether in a hospital in Britain or Africa, in China or America, all those beating hearts would look and indeed would be the same. He didn't have an answer, but he had been struck by the question.

There was the night in August, when she had come to recruit him to pick her up at a pub- a _pub_- because the nurses were celebrating after work and she intended to be among them. He had asked her if she had ever been to a pub and she had answered, _"Of course not. When would I have ever been to a pub?"_ He eventually gave in and agreed (as if there were ever any doubt), despite the fact that her father would hit the roof if he found out. And he had even sneaked her her first bottle of beer, out back behind his cottage, so she could acclimate to the bitter taste of ale before libating in a public house for the first time.

They had not spoken, bluntly or obliquely, about his proposal since she had returned from York. They had one glancing encounter as the holidays drew near, about the festivities at Downton that included the servants. She had fretted that if people saw, they would know. He had asked, _"Know what?"_ To which she had replied, with an exasperated look and in an exasperated tone, _"Oh God, never mind then!"_ before huffing off. In the end, it didn't matter. She skipped it all, choosing instead to put herself on the hospital schedule to work the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Today, he had partaken in the traditional Christmas lunch with the downstairs staff and driven the Dowager Countess home early, about an hour ago, because it was really starting to come down out there.

Once the car was back safely in the garage, he went back outside with the lamp to inspect the state of the ice in the driveway. Which is what he was in the middle of doing when she arrived home, stepping through the pillars that marked the entrance, a splash of red breaking apart the black-and-white night.

"Evening, Branson."

"And a fine one it is, don't you think?" He did not use her given name, but he never addressed her by her title anymore; it would have been quite absurd to do so, given their advanced relationship.

"Quite." She looked up at the swirl of snow and stars, dimly lit by the lamp. "Fancy meeting you here," she remarked, a sly sparkle in her eye. "Conveniently with a light as well."

"I'm here to serve," he retorted, just as sly. "Shall I walk you up to the house?"

"Yes, please." He picked up the lamp and they started up the drive. She asked about Christmas dinner and he told her that Mrs. Patmore's talent had not been encumbered by rations. He asked about Christmas at the hospital and she said the men's spirits were lifted by the carolers who had come to perform.

"Do the patients ever talk about the war," he wondered, "and what it was like?

She considered for a moment and then replied, "Sometimes. Most don't ever talk about the front, except the ones with injured minds. But they do like to tell stories of leave or Paris or the girls. They do talk about the girls, what they did for cigarettes, that sort of thing."

He didn't have anything to add to that and so they joined the silence around them, as they walked under the canopy of barren brown branches and stars. The snow was at least four centimeters deep now and they listened to it crunch under their feet. A deer blinked out from behind a tree trunk a few yards away and they stopped to watch until it darted off.

Too soon, the big grand house rose out of the distance, the white moon dancing on its towers.

"It is beautiful," he admitted.

"Is it? I used to think so," she mused. "But one of the soldiers had his family visit today- four children and his wife. A family of six crowded around a bed that's not even big enough for him. The hospital has sixty more patients than it has the capacity to hold. And this is the home of a family of five? It doesn't seem right."

"Well." She knew his opinions, he didn't need to repeat them. He didn't want to disturb this peace with class polemics. But he saw, in her profile, that her face was twisted with emotion and he couldn't help speak up on that. "But truly, I don't think that's your problem. I think this house could be five times its size and it would still be too small to hold you. You're a free spirit and free spirits don't suffer cages, not even golden ones. Free spirits must be free."

She turned and faced him directly. For a second, a confession seemed imminent. But instead, she just laughed, her eyes soft, and when he asked what, she pointed out that his hair was covered with snowflakes. He shook it out, ran his palm over his crown, making her shake her head in that way women do when they realize men are lost causes. "Oh dear. Now your hands are wet and your hair's in your eyes!" She reflexively went to sweep away a stray lock, but caught herself before she reached his forehead. He saw her clench her fist a little as she dutifully returned it to her side.

She looked down, embarrassed, and started to walk again. But she surprised him by saying, "It's a bit slippery. Perhaps I should take your arm." She tipped her head sideways at him and added, "If you don't mind, of course."

"No, I don't mind." He could barely utter the words as he offered his arm to her. She encircled his elbow and her hand fell onto his forearm like the snow- soft but insistent, an elemental force assuming a deceptively delicate form.

His mind briefly traversed the icy ocean to Ireland and the parks he used to know. If they were there and not here, they would kiss now, this walk through water would give way to another elemental state, hushed love in front of a fire somewhere, trying not to get caught; young men and women were not supposed to there either, but somehow they were always able to find their own secret spaces.

As he and Sybil always seemed to find their secret space.

Like now, as they admired this shower of light that relieved the dark of winter, and pretended not to be secretly admiring each other.

They stopped a few yards short of the start of the curve of the driveway, in order to remain out of view of the inhabitants of the house. That they had both known to stop at the same time, in the same place, for the same reason upset him; secrets were fun, but fear was not. Sybil gently withdrew her arm from his. "Happy Christmas, Branson," she smiled. "I'm very glad I could say it in person this year."

"A Happy Christmas to you as well."

She didn't move to leave, but instead sighed and cast a resigned look towards her home. "Another Christmas, another year. I suppose we must try to enjoy it- who knows where any of us will be next year."

He shouldn't have dared, but since she seemed to be deliberately stalling, he decided to ask. "What do you wish for in the New Year?"

"Peace," she responded without hesitation, "like everyone else." She cocked her head and let a beat pass, as if to tell him she knew exactly what he wanted to hear and he would have to try harder than that. "What about you?"

"Peace," he agreed. "But also for a world that can hold it, tend it, take care of it, protect it. Peace for the soldiers fighting, but also for the parents who can't afford to feed their children, for the workers whose occupations are a death sentence, for the citizens of a country which is denied existence. I wish for peace for all of them. I won't get it next year. I probably won't get it in my lifetime."

Her face clouded with confusion, as if he had upset some very fundamental notion about him that she held. "I thought you believed change is inevitable. But it sounds like you believe what you're pursuing is unachievable. Why?"

"History is about progress," he explained. "None of us are authors, but we can all be contributors I think. I want to do my part. And I believe the future will be better for my children and it will better for their children. That's not nothing. Far from it." That expression quickened a wondrous look on her face. "What?"

"Just think- we're on the eve of 1918. We'll live, God willing, to the middle of the century. And our children will live to the end of it," she marveled. "The year twenty-hundred, Branson! Can you imagine? Can you even imagine?"

_Our children_. "I can."

He was not daft, he had been in the vicinity of this before… she had not, had never been courted, didn't know _that_ is what this is; _this_ is what it feels like to lose one's heart to someone. Arm-in-arm, laughing at the snow, looking at the stars, speaking of the future- if it were love it would not be any different, which meant it was the same.

He stepped closer to her and confessed in a low voice, "I wish for peace, but much more as well."

She did not step back. "To 1918 then," she said with boldness, "and peace and more."

"To peace and more."


	10. Chapter 10: March 1918 Part I

_Thank you so much as always for the kind reviews! (And re: Sybil's passion for nursing- it's not canon per se, but I want her to love what she does. Personally, I'd love if the rumored "Catholic storyline" in S3 is Sybil Branson, black market birth control provider in Dublin!_)

This chapter is probably as far off-canon as I'll get, with a cameo from a character I made up, but I can't find any way to explain Branson's schizophrenic personality shifts in 2x03. In 2x02, he has hope that Sybil is breaking from her old life. But in 2x03, after he escapes being sent to war, he _still_ thinks all is lost with Sybil and proceeds to try to get himself thrown in prison over the plot with the General! There is nothing in the script that explains that other than lazy writing. So, this is my version. Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>March 1918<strong>

For the first time in months, when the dawn came, the air was mild and there was no wind. Spring was coming and as Branson walked towards the servants' hall, he thought about how quickly time amassed on the side of the past, especially when one was making a conscious effort not to keep count.

They saw less of each other these days because she was working so much at the hospital and at the new makeshift convalescent home, but the time they did spend together felt more substantial. When she came to the garage, it wasn't to idly pass the time- it was to share the experiences of her day: to vent about Dr. Clarkson's poor decisions that she wasn't empowered to correct, to relay the ribald conversations from the nurses' breaks, sometimes to tear up recalling the loss of a patient. She was flourishing at work and he felt privileged to be party to it.

Concomitant with that, her view of the world, and her view of _her_ world, was also expanding. It wasn't yet so vast as to include him. But he had hope.

"_Do you think you could ever go back, to your life before the war?" _

_"Oh no, I could never go back to that again."_

So yes, he had hope. And spring was on the doorstep.

But that afternoon, something else arrived.

* * *

><p>He still hadn't processed the contents of the official letter in his hand when he heard a knock at the cottage door.<p>

His mouth fell open to see his little brother- his second shock of the last hour. "Hello, Tommy."

"Liam!" he cried. "Jesus..." He blinked a few times with disbelief, before emitting the only cogent question his mind had managed to form. "What the feck?"

Liam grinned. He was tall and reedy with darker hair, but the same intense blue eyes. He had been a kid when Tom left Ireland, but now he was nearly twenty-one, in a grey flannel suit that didn't quite fit him. "Trip to Parliament for my Government class. I have to be in London by tonight, but I thought I'd stop off in York and see my big brother. You have a little time?"

"Yeah, I could make some," Tom said, stepping back and allowing him entrance. "No one's ordered the car."

Liam walked into the kitchen, scoping the place out- warily, almost as if he were looking for something. "This where you live?"

"Yep."

Liam nodded. "Nicer than where you come from." The fact that he used the present tense didn't escape Tom's notice.

"How's mam?" Tom took a seat at the small kitchen table. Liam followed his brother, taking the other seat.

"Same. Good, I guess," Liam shrugged and pulled out a cigarette. "Do you mind?" Tom nodded that he did not. Liam caught his brother staring at him incredulously. "What?"

"Nothing. Just- seeing you, I think for the first time, I feel old," he admitted with a wry laugh.

"Good to see you, Tommy." The younger Branson took a long drag. "It's been too long." Again, there was just the slightest hint of menace in his words.

"Are you hungry? There's a couple decent pubs in town."

Liam's whole face soured as he emphatically shook his head. "Nah. I'd rather stay here. I hate this country. Don't like its people, don't like its pubs."

"Yet you're here to tour its Parliament," Tom observed.

"I don't give a feck about its Parliament! I only came to see you," Liam revealed, "and figure out what the hell you're still doing here, since you've taken to saying nothing in your letters."

"Working," Tom answered tartly. He was not amused. He begrudged his brother nothing, but Tom was smart, knew he was smart, but university had not been in the cards for him. He had had to find an occupation, so he'd found one, a good one for his station. He was making money, saving money, and he had ambitions- he certainly didn't need to be told off by some cocksure student. "You might have heard of it."

"Is there a baby?" Liam blurted out.

"_What_?"

"Because then I could understand. I know you would never abandon your child, Tommy, nor your responsibilities to the mother, even if she was English.

"No," Tom replied, too stunned to be offended, "I've not gotten anyone pregnant, Liam."

"What is it then? I'm not taking the piss, honest- I just want to understand."

Tom sighed. "The situation's complicated-"

"Can't you uncomplicate it by leaving?"

"You're graduating soon," Tom changed the subject. "You thought about what you want to do?"

"Join the fight. No question. I wish I didn't have to wait until May."

Tom gave him a stern look. "You'll stay until May, you'll get your degree and you'll avoid conscription in the process."

"Have you heard the Bishops have decided to take up Irish conscription next month? It'd be a big victory, Tommy, if the Church stood against it."

"So I've read." _That's why the British army is sending its letters as fast as possible._ "It would be, indeed. Though you know I'm wary of making common cause with the Church. They've too much power in Ireland already."

"You'll admit, it's a useful ally to have though." Liam sat back and listened; it was like old times, talking and debating after school.

"Undoubtedly, but an Irish free state can't become Vatican Island, a papal proxy. A nation must be secular if it's to be truly democratic. The Church's backwards views on women and sex- with every mother in line at the poor box carrying ten babies, Ireland will never lift itself out of poverty. People can't allow themselves to be disempowered- not by the crown, by the Church, by industrial interests that don't care if a mine collapses or a factory burns down. We need a way to explain that to regular people, working people, a _Common Sense _for the twentieth century. Though I can't imagine anything more disempowering than an Irishman being asked to sacrifice his own bodily person to defend a country that denies his sovereign rights as a man."

"You should write it." Liam smiled, then added, "The cause would love to have you."

"Is that so?" Tom tried to hide it, but he was pleased; even as a chauffeur, his ideas had impressed a student of politics.

"'Tis. So how about it?"

"I'll think about it," Tom deflected. Liam's eyes were still trained on him. "What? Did you think I'd pack a bag and catch the train back with you?"

"Why not?"

"Because I've commitments, that's why!"

"Commitments?" Liam scoffed. "What commitments? The Lord of this house doesnt need your commitment. It's this girl. We're back to the girl." He threw his hands up. "I swear Tommy, if someone had bet me five years ago we'd be having this conversation, I'd be a poor, poor man right now." Liam saw a flash of recognition in Tom's eyes, confirmed by the fact he immediately looked away; his brother knew it was true. _Pride was always his Achilles' heel_. "You know, Kathleen Connelly's carried a torch for you since the day you left. Still does."

"What do I care about Kathleen Connelly?"

"She could help take your mind off that British bitch-"

"Watch your mouth!" Tom exploded, enraged.

Liam pushed on, undeterred. "- who's scrambled your brain and ruined your life. Because that's what this is," he said, gesturing to the cottage. "Truly."

"I think it's pretty rich for a self-avowed socialist- the party of _workers_- to be condescending about work."

"_Labor_ is ennobling," Liam retorted. "Servitude is not."

"You've never worked a day in your life, what would you know about it!" Tom shot back. "There's a lot of good people here who work very hard and care about what they do- it's not for you to judge."

"I'm sure that's true and I'm not judging them, I'm judging _you_," Liam informed him. "Because I never thought you'd go stupid, not over a girl, not over an _English_ girl, and definitely not over an English girl who's turned you down."

Before he could think not to say anything, Tom said, "She hasn't-"

"Do you hear yourself? What's happened to you? Where is she then," Liam challenged, "if she hasn't turned you down? Bring her over if she hasn't turned you down! She owes you a year or two, God knows you've been in her country long enough." Tom, for once, had no response, no facts, nothing clever to say to contradict the truth Liam was throwing in his face. Liam jumped up, almost knocking his chair over in the process. "Forget it. You're a lost cause. You know, not a week goes by without someone asking after you- _'That brother of yours- bright lad, big future, God knows this country needs him.'_ It's tragic, you know. The British took you out without a bullet."

The door slammed. A few minutes later, Tom rose from his chair and followed his brother out, letter in hand, to alert Mr. Carson that he had been called up to war.

* * *

><p><strong>Two Weeks Later <strong>

Edith shot a death stare at Mary as the argument escalated. "Is it so impossible," she demanded to know, "for you to think that I might actually have a good idea?"

Sybil had tuned out her sisters' usual sniping and continued to butter her toast.

"Hmpfh," was all Mary replied. Sybil briefly looked up. She knew, from years of this, that nothing insulted Edith more than Mary's silence. Mary knew it too. As Edith's face turned bright red with fury, her eldest sister, eyebrow arched, lifted her teacup to conceal a victorious smile.

Robert lowered his newspaper and instructed with tired sternness, worn down by years of this, "Mary, be nicer to Edith." He turned to Edith. "Learning to drive was a very good idea indeed. You showed foresight the rest of us lacked. And I suppose we'll have to rely on you to drive us all around in the near future."

"Why's that?" Sybil entered the conversation for the first time since saying good morning. The three of them stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Why will Edith have to drive us all around?"

Robert frowned. "Weren't you- were you really not at breakfast at all last week?"

Sybil willed herself not to be offended at yet another reminder that her father couldn't even be bothered to feign interest about her work. "No Papa. Remember, I had the overnight shift last week."

"I suppose so." His tone dripped with disapproval. "Well, Carson informed us last week that Branson has been called up." Sybil's mouth went dry and she couldn't breathe; it felt like someone had yanked her corset strings so tight that her lungs couldn't expand. "I don't suppose we'll be able to place an ad in the paper for another able-bodied male," Robert continued, unaware of his youngest daughter unraveling beside him. "It is rather a shame. His political views are mad, no doubt, but that aside, Branson's probably the most well-read chauffeur in Britain."

"Excuse me." Sybil tried to steady her voice as she gingerly pushed back her chair. "I should have left for the hospital already." Robert and Edith paid no attention to Sybil's hasty exit, but the ever-observant Mary looked at the clock, took note of the time and the steam still rising from Sybil's teacup and deduced that her sister had, in fact, quite clearly abandoned her breakfast much sooner than she planned.


	11. Chapter 11: March 1918 Part II

**March 1918**

Last _week_? How had he not told her? They had seen each other several times since Carson had delivered the news and God knows how many days Carson knew before he told Papa, or how many days Branson knew before he told Carson. Yet he had kept this awful secret from her.

Outside on the green, in between big gulps of pollen-filled spring air, she processed her immediate emotions. She felt hurt and betrayed that he had deliberately kept her in the dark, furious she had to hear from (of all people) her father and pretend that she had no reaction. And she was confused about why he hadn't wanted to tell her or feel he needed to tell her. He owed her that. As a friend.

But no, _more_ than that. He had _proposed_ and she hadn't said no; if circumstances had changed, he at least needed to have the decency to tell her himself, not make her hear it at breakfast, third-hand. Surely he knew she would find out. Didn't he know it would hurt? _What would he think if he saw how I reacted?_ she wondered. _Didn't he want to know?_

But all those emotions were soon eclipsed by a more pervading one, dread, because how could she face the hospital and the wounded men- skin scarred, eyes blown out, limbs blown off- knowing that Branson could soon be one of them... or worse. She had to face the hospital now, but she did not have to face him and she didn't. Not that day or the next one either.

Finally, three days after Papa dropped the bombshell at breakfast, she felt she had numbed her feelings enough to walk down to the yard, where she found Branson washing the car. She had played the conversation in her head at least a dozen times prior to now. In her head, she was righteous and angry: _How could you not have told me yourself! I almost fell off my chair when Papa told me, casual as if he were reciting the weather report!_

But when she saw him, she inexplicably lost her nerve and her need to fight, and she just wanted to talk to him, find out how long they had left, discuss a way to write, to keep in contact, perhaps if he were injured...

The bucket clanged against the gravel, and a bit of water sloshed over the side. She knew he knew she was there, but he said nothing. She strode over to him, clutching the blanket she was holding to her like a child's toy.

"Carson told Papa you've been called up."

His attitude and the plan he revealed- a plan that did not include her- caught her completely off guard.

* * *

><p>Gallows humor. That was the only proper description for how Tom Branson approached the sudden turn of his life while reflecting on recent events in the waiting room. Fate had stepped in one afternoon and decided to drastically limit his future options. Go to war. Go to prison. Killed. Maimed. Record for life. What else could he do but chuckle at those choices?<p>

He could be a corpse, a casualty or a criminal. But not Sybil Crawley's husband. He would never have the chance to win her heart, to run away with her and have adventures in the world. The best he could hope for would be that the years in prison would afford him the time to actually write down the political treatise that had been kicking around in his mind for a decade. But he wondered if he even burned with the same political ambitions he had when he arrived. He was not the happy warrior he used to be. Had he lost touch with himself when he fell in love with Sybil, or just the opposite?

_"The British took you out without a bullet."_

Either way, she wasn't in love with him and it was all over now anyway.

"Mr. Branson?" called the nurse. "The doctor will see you now."

* * *

><p>It didn't matter that he'd been rejected from the army. It didn't matter that he had a heart condition. All that mattered is that she didn't love him- didn't love him when he was drafted, didn't love him when he was turned down, didn't love him now, didn't love him no matter what he did. It was liberating, actually. Nothing he could do carried any consequence- at least not any consequence he cared about. If he didn't get them one way, he'd get them another and what did it matter? She didn't love him one way or another.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>April 1918<strong>

Sybil slammed the door to her room. Within seconds, she heard the predictable footsteps in the hall, a knock and Edith's voice. "Sybil, what in the world-"

"I'm fine!" she snapped. "Please leave me alone!" This place was like a prison sometimes.

Sybil paced around, agitated. Branson had been so impossible lately. She didn't know what had happened, but something must have happened. After York, they were fine. All last year, they were fine. Hell, last month, they were fine, chatting away in the garage as ever. But over the past few weeks, it was like he had transformed into Mr. Hyde. Take today at the car. It was a rare opportunity for her to speak to him out in the open and then- the most wonderful news!- a reprieve, the angel of death known as the Great War had passed him over. But he had all but taken her head off for being glad that he wasn't going to be killed on the battlefield or condemned to rot in prison. Then he dropped the horrific news about his cousin being wrongfully shot by British officers. She had tried to say she was sorry, she didn't know (because he hadn't told her), and he had practically bitten her head off over that too!

_Fine_, she thought. _If he wants to be hateful, let him be so. S_ee if she cared. She could hold her own in a battle of wills.

She lasted a week. During which, she was restless and irritable and distracted. She walked home from the hospital in the rain with no boots because she refused to call for the chauffeur. She took it out on her family and even her colleagues work. She heard whispers of _"...it's not like Sybil." _ Well, fine then. He wasn't being like himself either.

On day eight, she cut him off as he was walking back from the garage to his cottage. She waited, out of view behind a large oak tree, for him to pass, and when he did, she stepped out and confronted him.

"Is this an ambush?" His words were cool as ever, remarkably discordant with his body language. He was jittery, overly alert- _hunted_, is how he looked to her. "You're not armed, are you?"

"Possibly." It had only been a week since he'd last seen her- a standoff that had been both their choice- but now, his heart ran out ahead of him, she was _so_ pretty, so perfectly fitting of everything he wanted, which only amplified his feelings of failure. "If I am, it's only in self-defense after how you've treated me lately." She made no effort to conceal the hurt in her voice.

"..._n__ot over an English girl, and not over an English girl who's turned you down_."

"I see. Have you come to scold me? Am I to sit in the corner until you tell me I've been duly punished?"

"What is _wrong_ with you? I've come to talk to you, to see if I can help, since you're clearly upset."

"I don't want to talk. Sorry for the tatty comments, but I'd just rather be alone." He moved to pass her, but she reached out and arrested him. He looked at her hand firmly on his forearm. Her eyes were trained intently on his face.

"Would you?" she asked softly. "Is that _your_ answer?"

"There's no question on the table for me."

"I think we both know that-"

"No we don't both know!" He snatched his arm back. "You know what you know. I know nothing." She knew that was another invitation for her to speak up, to tell him something, but once again her voice failed her. "It's getting late. You should get back up to the house," he told her, resigned.

She shook her head. "I'm not leaving."

He shrugged. "Well, I am." He pushed past her; he had other things to do tonight. Sybil was left standing dumbly in his wake. She was so frustrated, unaware of how to break through, knowing that something fundamental had changed for them, but unable to respond. But she watched him go, leave her behind, and she knew she did not want that.

"I think you're being incredibly unfair," she called after him. "You've asked me for _everything_- I've asked you for nothing!"

He stopped. This was the first time she had ever explicitly mentioned the proposal in York. And in the present tense no less. But it was too late. "Then you should be happy," he replied, without turning around. "You're getting exactly what you asked for."

His words stung like a sharp cut. He walked on and without thinking, she went after him, a sob rising in her throat. "Did you really expect me to say yes, just like that?"

He whipped around. "'_Just like that_!'" he mocked. "It took the Americans less than a month write a declaration and create a new _country_- you've had more than a year to come up with an answer to one question!"

"It's a very big question!" she defended. She made a futile effort to compose herself and added, "And a difficult one, one that deserves deliberation."

"Are you deliberating?" He was standing as close to her as he ever had and the most maddening thought came into her mind: she didn't know if she was holding all the power or none of it. "Or are you just having your way?"

"How can you ask me that?" she stammered.

"What are you doing here, Sybil?" That was likely the first and last time he would ever address her by name, stripped of her title. "Go home. You don't belong here."

"I can't just leave. My family. My life."

"You say you love your family, but if you don't what they want- if you won't be who they want you to be instead of who you are- they'll turn you out. That's their love for you. You're worried about disappointing _them_. How about how they've disappointed you? And as for your _life_? I doubt whoever they marry you off to will be too keen on you running to the garage day and night to find satisfation with the help." That cruel prediction left a swift and severe impression on her face. Well, the truth hurts, she didn't have to tell him. "Though I do hope you find it somehow because it kills me to think of that future for you and I'm not the one who'll have to live it."

"No, you'll just be here knowing better than me and everyone else, as always."

"Oh, it won't be me. You'll have to face it on your own and the best of luck to you."

"Wait! Where are you going?" She did not mean the cottage.

"Go home, Sybil!" he pleaded. "Go back to your family, back to your life. Please just _go._"

He went inside and sat down to write, quickly, before his old foe optimism returned and stole his resolve.

_Lady Sybil_

* * *

><p>When Anna found the letter in Lady Sybil's bedroom the next day, even in her frantic haste to relay the contents to Mr. Carson regarding the General and Branson's plan, she was discreet enough to keep this line to herself:<p>

_For all of it- even York which I could never regret._

_Forgive me._


	12. Chapter 12: April 1918

Thanks as always for the reviews and for the great comments on 2x03 after the last chapter! (I added a follow-up thought on the show in the comment section, if interested).

Also, if you missed it- Julian Fellowes had the most wonderful comment about Sybil in the TV Guide interview. We've heard Anna and Mary call Sybil "strong" but JF defined strong as having "great strength of character" (as opposed to strong-willed/stubborn/defiant)- I love that. The whole bit is worth a read.

This is a little departure from show canon with the letter, because there's no way Branson wouldn't have been fired for attempting to sneak a private letter to Lady Sybil's bedroom.

* * *

><p>Anna walked with trepidation to Lady Sybil's room that night. She helped her undress and ready for bed, all the while practicing in her head what she would say about the events of that day, of which she was sure Lady Sybil was completely unaware. The youngest Crawley was in cheerful spirits- more like herself, Anna thought, but a dramatic change from her uncharacteristic dark mood the past few weeks. Anna wondered what had changed today and the only thing she could think that was different today was that Mr. Branson had been in the dining room.<p>

She fingered the letter in her pocket and wondered what Lady Sybil thought when she saw Mr. Branson, for the first time presumably, all dressed up in tails and gloves. Anna imagined with a smile, as she removed the last of the pins from Lady Sybil's hair and gathered the wild locks into a ribbon below her shoulders, she must have been quite taken.

Lady Sybil thanked her and bade her goodnight and Anna knew she could delay no longer. "Milady..." she faltered.

"Yes?" Sybil turned around in her vanity chair, her face immediately reflecting the concern in the maid's. "Anna, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, milady. But I found something today," Anna tried to phrase it delicately, "that doesn't belong to me and I think it should go to its rightful owner." She reached into her pocket, took out the letter and handed it to her. Sybil didn't recognize the handwriting on the front but when she opened it, the word _York_ leaped out and her eyes widened and flew, in fear, to Anna's face.

Anna moved quickly to explain. "I found it in the laundry I was taking up to your room. I told Mr. Carson about some of it, but I didn't show it to anyone. And no one knows he wrote to you."

"If they did-" Sybil didn't have to finish that sentence. Anna knew exactly that Branson would be immediately dismissed, without severance. If Lord Grantham didn't demand his head on a pike first, that is. "I don't understand though- what did you tell Carson, then?"

Anna swallowed. "Perhaps you should read it first, milady, and then I'll explain the rest."

She curtsied and went to leave, to allow Lady Sybil some privacy to read what was obviously intended to be a private correspondence, but Sybil stopped her. "No, stay. It's fine." Anna tried not to look at Lady Sybil as she read Mr. Branson's letter, but she couldn't help sneak a few glances. The letter wasn't more than a few sentences, but Lady Sybil kept her head bowed for a long while- obviously reading, re-reading, translating it into a language that Anna didn't speak, one whose references and implications were known only to them.

Anna was more than piqued by the relationship between Lady Sybil and the chauffeur. She had always liked Lady Sybil, as everyone downstairs did (except for O'Brien, who didn't like anyone and referred to her as "_that foolish child spoiling to send her mother to an early grave_"). Anna didn't know Lady Sybil as well as Gwen had, but Gwen was adamant that Lady Sybil had _"the best heart of anyone I've ever known. Honest Anna, she truly doesn't think herself better than us- in station she is, of course, but she's been a better friend to me than any friend I've ever had save for you. And besides, you're more like a sister than a friend."_

Based on Gwen's assessment, it was entirely possible that Lady Sybil had developed an affection for Mr. Branson for who he was in spirit, despite who he was in station. Indeed, she could see their spiritual similarities: both people with rebel hearts and big ideas about the world. Lady Sybil's rebellious streak was the stuff of legend downstairs. Mrs. Patmore had even coined a favorite staff phrase, when Daisy had dared talk back (at a time when all of the talk was focused on upstairs and a certain scandalous frock): "_Are you getting pantsy on us?"_ and then promptly informed her that, not being the daughter of an earl, if she persisted, Mrs. Patmore would beat the sass out of her with a spoon. And so, "being pantsy" became a thing among the staff- outside of the ears of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes of course. She hadn't noted it then, but recalling it now, she remembered Mr. Branson's ear-to-ear grin and his retort when he'd been accused of pantsyness: _"Thomas, I'm _always_ pantsy."_

But Anna was no fool and she knew that affairs with people below stairs were sort of sport for people who lived above them: an enjoyable way to kill time. The below-stairs people never saw it that way. No maid ever went to her master's bed without dreaming that he might one day make her mistress of the house; no groundskeeper ever stole a moment with one of the daughters without thinking of stealing her away to Gretna Green.

These men and women of the great houses of Britain were bored and careless, exactly as they had been raised to be; they were used to demanding whatever they wanted without thought to its cost and discarding it when something else caught their fancy. That's how it was with everything in their day, everyday of their lives- why should love be any different?

Lady Sybil was more caring than most, but she was, in station at least, one of those women now- a beautiful young woman who would have men eating out of her hand if there were any around; she must think about that, must yearn for companionship and romance like all women, must be frustrated that her sisters had had much more interaction with men simply by accident of birth year and war. It's no surprise she had been taken by the handsome driver and all his white-hot passions. Anna couldn't remember Mr. Branson ever being with a girl or talking about a girl the entire time he'd been at Downton (not that she read into it; she liked discretion). In fact, Anna had wondered if Gwen had fancied Mr. Branson a bit when he arrived; they had struck up a friendship, though perhaps their kinship was simply that they were each, separately, co-conspirators with Lady Sybil.

Mr. Branson was smart and even more sure of himself, but it had struck Anna how _not_ he sounded in his letter. It was cryptic to her, but not to the person to whom it was addressed:

_Lady Sybil_

_We've not lived the same life, so I don't expect you to understand my anger over Ireland. It is my fight and not yours, but I do have to fight- if not on the battlefields of Europe, then on the battlefield here at home- your home, anyway. _They'll have arrested me by now, but I'm not sorry. The bastard had it coming to him._ Though it pains me immeasurably to think of you seated at the table, forced to watch, knowing what you will think of me, I must do it nonetheless. If nothing else, it does answer the question. That is at least peace for us, if not more._

_For all of it- even York which I could never regret,_

_Forgive me._

Sybil read it, and re-read it, and read it a third time before it sunk in and she asked, "Will you explain it to me now, Anna?"

"Milady, as I said, I found the note and I would have left it alone, honest, except that it did sound like he was planning something, so I told Mr. Carson I had heard something."

"Mr. Carson pulled him out of the dining room, saying he had taken ill," Sybil recalled. "I was worried about him," she confessed, "though I tried no to show it. We'd been talking of pneumonia and he has a heart condition." She pushed past the fear in her throat to ask the next question. "What was he planning?"

"It was- nothing serious, milady. A prank, really." Anna didn't offer details and Sybil didn't ask; she didn't want to know. "To embarrass the General."

Sybil looked down at the letter in her hands. She was not convinced that was his intention. __They'll have arrested me by now, but I'm not sorry...__ _it does answer the question... peace for us, if not more. _"He would have been dismissed, had he carried it out."

"True," Anna conceded and then added quietly, "but he didn't."

"No." Sybil had felt his eyes on her at the table today. In her head, she had counted- _one, two, don't look don't look, three, look straight ahead, four_, _five, show nothing, you're not speaking anyway- _while smiling and nodding and pretending to pay attention to whatever inane conversation she was ostensibly participating in. He had looked at her and then pulled back, let Carson lead him downstairs. She had a sudden flash of when she had called him back as he walked away in the archway in York- the perceptible course of hope in his shoulders, the resigned look on his face when he told her, yes, he would be back; yes, he would stay. He had decided to stay today. Again. But she knew it couldn't go on like this. She had to find something to say, even if it wasn't an answer; he deserved that much.

Anna's voice brought her back into the room. "Since no harm was done, Mr. Carson decided not to tell his Lordship. Though I'm sure Mr. Branson's ears will be bleeding from the tongue-lashing Mr. Carson will give him tomorrow."

"I'm sure," Sybil murmured. "Anna, Carson would have certainly dismissed him if he had known he had written to me. So I thank you for that and for giving this to me." Lady Sybil was so full and sincere in her gratitude, Anna almost wished she could give her the perspective of the late Mr. Pamuk. _Truly, milady- this was an easy confidence to keep._ "I know it must be awkward and you would have been well within your rights to turn it over to Carson or burn it and forget it ever existed."

"I could never do that- that's not how we are, milady. And so you know, I have forgotten it. For all intents and purposes." She smiled and let Lady Sybil know she had another conspirator and friend in her.

* * *

><p>Sybil knocked softly on the door- no answer. Irked, she went around the back window, where the curtain was drawn and rapped loudly. She waited a moment, heard a bit of muffled motion inside and saw a silhouette creep towards the window. <em>Oh God, he probably thinks a I'm robber<em>. Well, she was knocking on the window in the dead of night like Jacob Marley or something. "It's Sybil," she announced.

The curtain was yanked halfway across and she saw his hands come to crack the window. A loud whisper came from behind the still-sheltered side of the glass. "Are you completely insane? You _cannot_ be here!"

"I received your letter and I've come with a reply."

"Sybil. _SYBIL-"_

"Why are you talking to me from behind a curtain? It's quite ridiculous."

"I'm not dressed to have a conversation with you, milady! I was in bed, so I am dressed for bed!" He meant dressed in the liberal sense of the word, as he was almost as naked as the day he was born.

"Good heavens, so am I- it is the middle of the night, after all." She spoke as if _he_ were the loony one! Lady Sybil in her nightdress with the chauffeur damn near naked at his cottage in the dead of night. Maybe he would make the newspapers after all.

"Alright," he relented. "Go around to the front, I'll put on a coat and meet you there." He threw on pants and a bulky coat and opened the door. He could see the bottom of a white eyelet nightdress hanging below her coat. Her hair was down and she seemed to him entirely nonplussed about the situation. "Should I come in?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"No, you should not! I'll be thrown in jail without the key if you are discovered here, dressed like this!"

"I'm glad to hear you think that a bad outcome now," she said tartly.

He sighed. "So you read the letter."

"I did." He tried to read her expression, but the darkness and her own stoicism stymied his attempt. "Anna showed it to me. She kept it secret from Mr. Carson and of course, my parents. You should thank her." He nodded and he would. "Anyway," she continued, her tone softening, "I put in the fire just to be sure it stays between us- well, us and Anna- but I had to come here because I'm just so...so..." _So...?_ he wondered what emotion was so overpowering her right now.

"- so... _upset_!" she managed to spit out.

Once again, he'd allowed himself to be duped into anticipating, ultimately, a completely ambiguous response. "Why?"

"Because you said you would make something of yourself and I believed you! And now, you just want to throw it away- throw your life away- for what? For some silly stunt at dinner?"

He started to argue back, but she cut him off. "No, don't try to defend it. You say you want to fight for Ireland, then _fight_ for it- go back and join Sinn Fein or organize for the anti-war movement or march against conscription. But don't get yourself sent to prison over a prank. Don't throw your life away for me. I'm not worth it. No one is." She had surprised herself; the words had just come. "That's not an answer, by the way. It's just the truth."

"Like you won't throw your life away for me?" He couldn't help himself.

"No, I wouldn't," she retorted righteously. "I might sacrifice it for something better, a better future, but no- I wouldn't just throw it away, as if it had no worth. And I want you to promise me that you won't either. No more of this."

He realized how ridiculous they must look, facing off with pajamas and bed-hair and winter coats, during the witching hours of a pleasant spring night, over what constituted proper political activism. "I can't do that." _I've made one promise to you- no more of _that.

"You can't or you won't?" He shrugged noncommittally. "Fine. I suppose you're within your right to be as stupid as you like. Goodnight, then." She turned and he mumbled something about getting his boots on so he could follow her back home and make sure she got inside safely. She waited- reluctantly- and they walked quickly back up to the house, him never coming within a yard of her.

When the house was in sight, he called softly. "I'll wait here until you're inside. And don't ever come down like that again." She threw him a look. "Because it's dangerous," he impressed. "Because you say you _don't _want to me to go to jail." She was not amused by his attempt at a half-joke and turned around again. "Because you can't just sneak out of the house and roam about the wilds of Yorkshire in your nightgown in the middle of bloody night!"

She whipped around. "What do you mean 'I can't'? I just did," she reminded him haughtily. "_You_ don't make promises and I don't take orders." She stalked off, the white eyelet nightdress dangerously close to grazing the muddy ground. He wasn't sure if it was her entitlement or simply because she was the baby of the family, but she hated to be denied what she wanted and he laughed at how she so unabashedly showed how she hated it. God help him, after the last few awful and anxiety-ridden weeks, culminating in the debacle at dinner (which he certainly hadn't heard the last of), he was standing on the wet lawn, in long johns and an overcoat, looking thoroughly foolish, laughing. Laughing and having an inkling, a presentiment perhaps- to his own surprise- that some day in the future, they'd be laughing about it together.


	13. Chapter 13: Spring 1918 Part I

Thank you so much as always for the kind reviews! Here's a 2x04 with a twist-

* * *

><p>It was after lunch before she could get down to the garage, where she found him changing the oil in the car. He gave her a wan smile and she inspected him for clues as to how it might have gone down. <em>He's still here and no outward wounds, that has to be a good sign. <em>"How are you?" He made a face. "That bad, huh?"

"I can't complain. I deserved worse."

"What did Carson say?" He gave her the miserable rundown of what Carson had said during his verbal flagellation, finishing with, "And so I promised I wouldn't do it again and he dismissed me. End of story." He wiped his hands on a rag.

Sybil frowned. Had she not asked the very same thing of him last night? "Why did you promise Carson not to stage any more protests, when you wouldn't promise me?" The question was soft, hurt and in truth, a little guilty, for she could imagine the answer.

He clammed up, defensive and a little self-conscious. _He had his reasons. _She should have expected that.

She tried to ask around Ireland; she didn't want him to go- not in York, not to war, not to prison, and not now. She had been successful, with some strokes of luck and the assistance of fate, in keeping him here, with her- even though she knew she had no right. So she had tried to sound measured, nonchalant, impartial. It came out a little too bright. "You won't be content to stay at Downton forever, will you?" as her heart pounded in her chest and she braced herself for his answer.

The relief she felt hearing that he would stay and wait was almost ruined, replaced by outraged indignation, by what he said next (so _typical, _she thought)._Scared? I'm not scared._ _I_ _don't scare and how dare you presume to speak for me._

But Mary had come into the yard and she had been forced to hold her tongue, turn away and abruptly end the conversation, yet again, without satisfaction.

_Why_ would she be afraid to admit it?

And how does he know- or rather, _think_ he knows- so suddenly that she's in love with him?

* * *

><p>Mary set the pen down, blew on the ink. Her script was as unsullied as her message- <em>I'm happy, Matthew, be happy for me. <em>After all, why should a woman without a heart be unhappy to marry a man she doesn't love?

She couldn't stop thinking about Sybil, which was fine because it kept away the thoughts of sea monsters and sandwiches and the lost dreams of the past. Remember when she had worried about an affection between Sybil and Matthew? _One must take comfort in small mercies, I suppose_, she thought, laughing a little at the memory.

Sybil had changed so much since then- grown up, really. How funny, Mary couldn't chart time on herself, but she saw it dramatically on her baby sister. Gone was the girl who staged small but noisy rebellions at home, who had looked up dewy-eyed and wondrous at Matthew, her rescuer; today, in the yard, she saw Sybil, in her ubiquitous nurse's uniform, itself a large and silent rebellion against the world, standing tall and looking directly at Branson, her...?

Granny's questions about Sybil echoed in her ears. "_I had a__n endless series of crushes at her_ _age_..."So had Mary. Sybil was different, but then Sybil had always been different, a deep river, unhardened, something Mary had known since she was a child was special and wanted fiercely to protect.

"_...at her age_..." Mary couldn't quite believe that time had ever existed, that it had ever been her life, much less that she had once sat at this desk living it.

Well, Mary thought, as she sealed her letter in the envelope, one of the things about growing up is learning what you can live through and knowing, as her fingers passed over the address of a battlefront in France, what you cannot.

* * *

><p>It was the way Mary said <em>"chauffeur"<em> that really bothered her, so without regard that Sybil felt compelled to remind her older sister that he was human, like them, and not some kind of sub-species. Thought it wasn't really Mary that Sybil was reacting to. If Mary had said cooks or housekeepers or gardeners, Sybil wouldn't have flinched. But _he_ wasn't a chauffeur. He was Tom Branson, from Dublin, who loved history and politics and newspapers and driving fast; who was too full of himself and said things he didn't mean, but also things that were so purely felt, so astonishingly purely felt, that they stole her breath away; who could seemingly fix anything and whose eyes laughed when he smiled.

_Chauffeur_ was his occupation, a temporary one at that. He was not his occupation, he was a person who had ambitions and dreams, an ever-increasing amount of which involved her.

* * *

><p>Sybil had lied in the hallway today. Twice, actually. The first lie was when she said- so obviously for her older sister's benefit, to try to throw her off, convince her <em>nothing to see here, Mary, best you just look away now<em>- with a little exasperated roll of her eyes like she was nine years old again, _"I don't even think I like him!_" It was all Mary could do not to groan out loud. Sybil was a good sneak, but that was a shoddy effort on her part. It directly contradicted what she had said at the other end of the stairs: _"I'm still not sure." _She was on her way to surety. Meaning, she was trying to get to surety. And the chauffeur apparently believed she was there already.

The second lie was two words- _"I promise." _Mary desperately hoped that Sybil was lying to her with those words and not to herself.

* * *

><p>She had lied to Mary today. She told Mary that Branson loves her and wants her to run away with him. What he had actually said was: <em>she<em> is in love with him and he would stay until _she_ wanted to run away with him. That was a very key difference.

* * *

><p>It comes down to whether or not she loves him. The rest, as he says, is detail.<p>

Sybil was lying back on her pillow, pondering that, when she heard a soft knock at the door. She grabbed a book off the night table and pretended to be reading. "Yes?"

Mary poked her head in. "I just came to say goodnight."

Sybil smiled tightly. "Goodnight."

"Can I come in?"

Sybil twisted the sheet. "It's just that... I'm quite tired and I have the early shift tomorrow. I wouldn't be very good company, I'm afraid." Mary ignored her gentle shove-off and sat down on the bed, opposite her sister. "I don't want to have this conversation again," Sybil said bluntly.

"I only want to say that I meant what I said before," Mary began. "I am on your side."

"That's not true." Mary's face didn't argue with her. "You're on my side as long as I'm where you think I should be."

Mary fell quiet; a moment of introspection that anyone except probably Sybil and their father would have thought uncharacteristic. Sybil smiled. Mary was a relentless thinker. Nobody was sharper, quicker or more incisive. When it came to the human equation, Mary was a brilliant mathematician. Sybil envied that sometimes, how her sister always seemed able to find an answer.

"Can I tell you something?" Mary eventually spoke. "When we finally won over Papa as children, to let us go out riding by ourselves without a chaperone, do you know what his condition was? He asked me, 'What position will you ride, Mary?' And I said, 'In front of course, to take the lead and show the way.' And he said, 'No. You should ride behind your sister, to look over her shoulder, because you are older and more experienced and you'll recognize danger before she does, you'll see the danger she cannot because she doesn't know it exists.'"

"I'm not_ in_ danger."

Mary shook her head. "I don't think that's true."

"Branson is not a danger to me, if that's what you're implying," Sybil rebutted, alarmed by what she thought she heard in Mary's words. "You don't know him. He would never hurt me." Mary shrugged bemusedly, spurring Sybil on in frustration. "I mean to say that when I said I was unsure, I did not mean to say anything has been... _unwanted_."

"I thought you said nothing happened."

"Mary, please, listen to me," Sybil implored, now sitting up at full attention. "He would never _do_ anything to hurt me. I need you to know that he hasn't and wouldn't, he would never-"

"Oh no, I'm not insinuating that. Really," Mary finally caught on to her sister's concern, though Sybil's fear was not unwarranted; they both knew that when a noble daughter strayed, a male's forceful urges made a much tidier explanation than a female's moral lapse. Mary thought of the night after the count, how worried Branson had been for Sybil's health. "You say he loves you and I believe you," she confirmed with sincerity. "But love is dangerous. _Lust_ is dangerous."

"Mary-"

"I know what it's like to be twenty, Sybil! I know how frustrating it is, to be a woman trapped in the life of a child. I know what it feels like to yearn for adventure and new experiences and to want to _live_ and not just exist." Mary was speaking with more zeal than Sybil had seen in her sister in a long time. "That feeling, that desire- it can twist things, distort them, make you forget caution. And then you wake up and the world is the same, but your place in it has been forever changed by your choices." It was overwhelming to say it aloud; Mary never had before. "You can't take it back, Sybil, is what I'm trying to tell you. You can't ever take it back."

"I know. But surely you think me better than that, don't you Mary?"

Sybil was so desperately seeking her sister's approval in her query that Mary almost confessed the whole Pamuk affair to her right then. _Yes, darling, I do think you better than that, better than I was certainly_, Mary thought. "Of course I do."

Pleased with that answer, Sybil settled back again, a glint of the old mischief in her eye. "What you said about being trapped in a child's life... Not all women live like we do. At school, my roommate she asked-" Sybil blushed, though not with embarrassment- "she asked if I had a beau and if so, I could sneak him into our room some night if I wanted. Can you imagine? Sneaking a man into our bed here? With the staff and Mama and Papa and never a moment without someone's eyes on you!"

"I can't imagine," Mary replied grimly. She narrowed her eyes at her giggling sister. "You didn't take her up on it, did you?"

"Mary!"

"Just making sure," she teased.

"I told you," Sybil reminded her, with a blush that was now decidedly embarrassed, "we haven't even kissed."

"And you won't, as you promised." Mary gave her a stern look.

"I will keep my promise." _N__ot to do anything stupid. But we may have different definitions of that_, Sybil thought to herself.

Now it was Mary's turn at mischief. She realized she and Sybil had never really talked like this, about this, since the war started. "What about someone else?"

"Someone else?"

"Have you ever kissed anyone else?"

Sybil shook her head. "No."

"Have you ever wanted to kiss anyone else?" And before Sybil could quarrel with the semantics, Mary rushed to add, "Don't bother pretending you don't want to kiss Branson. It's quite obvious that you do."

"No, I've not wanted to." Far from embarrassed, she was almost proud of that revelation. "Though I'm quite cross with him right now," she scowled.

"I suppose the conventions of sisterly conversation require me to ask why," Mary sighed.

Sybil jumped at the opportunity to vent about the rather heated argument that had been vexing her since it happened, a few hours earlier. "He can be so... well as I said, so _full of himself _sometimes!" _Oh God_, Mary thought as she watched her sister animate, _she's completely gone for him. _"He just says whatever he thinks, whatever he feels at that moment, even if it's not what he means."

"How attractive."

"The strange thing is? It _is_ attractive, to me," Sybil confessed. "Not the stupid things he says, of course. But I like that he's not so careful and calculated, parsing every word! Sometimes I feel like the conversations around here aren't even in English- everyone's so false and flattering that I never know what anyone means at all. And do you know, the fact that he says stupid, regretful things proves he's honest in his expression. Branson can be hot-headed, but it's more like, there's so much inside him, it just bubbles up and boils over. I should like to think and feel half as much as he does. I'd much rather be a hot kettle than cold tea."

"I dont know what you mean by 'hot-headed,' but he better not have spoken out of turn to you," Mary warned.

"Oh no, he just made a stupid remark, which I know he doesn't really mean. He needs to be punished for it, of course. And I won't speak to him again until he apologizes. _Profusely_," she emphasized.

"Well then, I hope you'll forgive me for hoping he never apologizes."

Sybil rolled her head onto her shoulder and gave Mary a pointed look. "No matter what else I may- or may not- feel, he's my friend. Other than you, he's the best one I have. I don't expect you to approve, but I don't think he deserves your disdain."

"Lest you think I've been less than supportive, remember that I have kept and will keep your secret- so long as you keep your promise. And if I despised him, you'd be having this conversation with Papa right now."

"No I wouldn't," Sybil informed her forthrightly. "I really wouldn't. If he threatened to fire Branson for being my friend, I'd leave tonight and never come back."

"You threatened to do as much after the count in Ripon," Mary recalled.

"I suppose I did."

"Did you- even then?"

"Oh no. It was much later than that. Years after."

"But it didn't happen yesterday."

"No."

"How long?"

Sybil hesitated and then answered, "I think it's better if I don't tell you. You are my sister and I love you for saying so, but we are not truly on the same side in this."

"I'll say goodnight then. I'm only trying to ride behind you, you know. I don't have an older sister. I wish I had, sometimes. Things might have turned out differently. Goodnight, Sybil."

Mary left and her little sister was left with much to think about.


	14. Chapter 14: Spring 1918 Part II

This day had been the definition of peripatetic.

It had started fine enough, then soured with an overheard conversation in the house, and then she showed up. That would have been enough, but tonight she came bearing admissions- admissions unexpected and dared not hoped for- that almost bowled him over. He lay in bed now, knowing this should be the greatest night he'd had since he'd been in England. Instead, he was filled with the desperate, quaking fear that he had just ruined everything.

* * *

><p>Late that afternoon, he had been summoned to help move some more beds and supplies into the rooms that now comprised the convalescent ward at Downton Abbey. As usual, the officers- which today were two men, both looking to be about thirty without any terribly disfiguring visible wounds, who were playing cards in the corner- paid the members of staff no mind and continued to talk as if he weren't in the room, which suited him perfectly fine until the chatter turned to the family.<p>

"I'm sure that Lord Grantham was disappointed, having three daughters," the first officer remarked. "But I'd like to personally thank him, on behalf of Queen and Country and the British Army. He deserves a commendation. I'd like to give him a medal. As for the daughters," he paused for effect, "I'd like to give them something else." They both snickered, the second officer shuffled the cards. "The younger one, the proper nurse, was making the rounds the other night and asked me, ever so sweetly, if there was anything I needed."

The second officer's eyebrows shot up. "Directions to her bedroom and a shout when she's going up to change?" was his jocular guess.

"Ha! I was tempted to say worse, trust me. Those uniforms are ghastly, by the way. Makes me think the Germans are behind them."

The second officer grinned and dealt. "They're not wholly awful," he offered. "What with the buttons and ties."

"Ah, clever, very clever. I hadn't thought of that. There'll be no need for a lady's maid for this _accouplement_. I retract my previous accusation. Let it never be said the Red Cross isn't looking out for the boys." The first officer considered his cards, played one without much care it seemed. "I wonder if she'll be working tonight."

Branson, his knuckles clenched white around an iron headboard, knew she would not.

"Better hit the loo now," the second officer advised. He added with an amused, pointed look, "The whole of London doesn't drink as much tea as you do when she's on a shift."

"My throat just gets so parched," the first officer feigned, "and she is just so... obliging." They snickered and continued their game.

The exchange also continued, predictably, but after another minute of lewd banter about _the one that's the nurse_, whose name neither of them could remember, the officers moved on to other girls and other topics and Branson, now finished with the first tranche of supplies, moved to the hall to collect himself. If this were Dublin, not Downton, the laughing one would be digesting his teeth right now and the randy one would be a breath away from dead. But there was none of the democratic justice of the streets here. They were _gentlemen_ after all, and he was to be at their service.

A hand on his shoulder drew him out his anger. "It's probably time for you to be off, isn't it, Branson?" Mrs. Crawley asked, giving him an empathetic smile. "Sybil should be finishing up her shift at the hospital soon. Won't she be waiting for you to pick her up?"

No, she liked to walk home from the hospital, but afterward, yes, she would probably be coming around to the garage. It was unnatural how Mrs. Crawley had heard none of the officers' conversation, yet knew exactly what to say to stop him from going back in there and doing something that would be not foolish, but would undoubtedly get him fired and tossed out before Sybil even made it home. "I should, yes," he replied. "Thank you." Mrs. Crawley patted him on the back. For a moment, he contemplated telling her what he had heard- the family should know what sort of element was inhabiting their house and speaking so disrespectfully about their daughters- but he was a man and God knows, he had participated in similar, harmless conversations. He decided to forget it.

If only he had.

* * *

><p>Their whole conversation tonight had been surreal and he had been quite unprepared for it. It had started normal enough- Sybil had discarded her nursing cap and apron at the house, made excuses for dinner and, quite pleased with herself, came down to the garage to unwind from the day. The Dowager Countess was at home and the rest of the family would be at the table for several hours; the night was warm, the moon was bright, and it should have made for a lovely evening between them. It had started that way, for sure. They discussed what was in the newspapers and traded anecdotes- about the patients, about the car, about Bates. She was leaning against the door frame, seeming entirely at ease, except that he couldn't quite shake the sense that she was not, that something was bothering her, something she wasn't telling him.<p>

And then she told him that she had told Mary. And this beautiful, little private pretend world- where they were two people in love, relaxing together after a long day- was violently punctured; the whole fantasy of the past few years was broken, ended forever.

He had tried to push her a little at the car the other day, by just stating out loud what he saw as the plain truth: _"You're in love with me."_ Not to say that he believed that truth carried any answer; far from it. She could love him and say no, followed by any number of reasons that would be plainly and veritably sensible for a woman in her position. Or she would hear it out loud and just _know_, in her heart, that it was not true. Or she could love him, but say she didn't know why, because he could be such a bastard sometimes. That was the sentiment that most accurately described what was flickering in her eyes when Lady Mary had mercifully interrupted them.

When Sybil told him tonight that she had told Mary, he wondered if maybe had pushed her too far, by presuming to know her feelings, and this was her way of pushing back. _"That's me finished then,_" he rashly concluded. But she raced to correct him- no, no, he didn't understand, she hadn't told _on_ them and she would have never confided in someone who would give them away.

"_G__ive us away_." He admitted he didn't really hear anything after that, not her words or the ones he spoke himself. So there is an _us_, and _we_- both of us- are living this secret life. He had caught her and she was glad of it, he thought, the way she smiled sheepishly and stepped closer. Emboldened, he asked her to deny that she was madly in love with him- which she did not, would not (could not?) do.

And then she surprised him again- would she ever stop surprising him?- by revealing so much more than he had been giving her credit for, so much more than he expected, or would have dared imagine. He didn't believe she was really deliberating- her feelings maybe, but not running away; he thought she was having her way, having both at once, her home and the garage. He didn't blame her for it. It was an awful, untenable choice to have to make and the war had afforded her the chance to avoid rendering a Solomon judgment on herself, cleave her own heart in two. But he knew that the life she was living now- a lady with freedom and purpose, able to live in both the house and the garage- was an illusion. When it vanished, this coexistence would be severed into stark contrast and she would be forced to choose, at this forking path, which one she would walk.

What surprised him though was how far she had wandered already, in her mind at least- would his people accept her? Had she, he so desperately wanted to know, already imagined saying yes, driving away from Downton, crossing the sea tucked under his arm, landing in a strange country, and only at his mother's doorstep had she faltered? Because if that were the case, forget his people, forget his family, they could move to the moon for all he cared, if that's what would make her say yes.

Then she said something about her work. And, in the greatest of ironies, all that frustrated anger directed at those two goddamn officers misfired at her. _"The one that's the nurse- what's her name again?" "I don't remember- but then, it's not her name I'm interested in." _To hear that said about someone whose every nuance and gesture and intonation was known to him, knowledge carefully accrued through years and trust and friendship and finally, love- truly, was there any worse insult?

Yes.

Probably the one he levelled at her work, the work she had fought so hard to be able to do and do well, the work which was the cumulative expression of everything she was and wanted to be and everything she had come to believe in- everything they believed in- everything that made his next assertion possible: _"It comes down to whether or not you love me. That's all, that's it. The rest is detail."_

It all came out so fast, but one look at her face told him now was definitely not the time to be challenging her on whether she loved him.

"Is that what you think?" she sputtered in shock. "About my work?" She did not wait for an answer. "That work is the only reason we're here, I'm here, having this conversation. Which is now over."


	15. Chapter 15: Spring 1918 Part III

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! Here's the rest of 2x04_

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><p>In a waking dream, in the early morning hours, he tells her what he really fears.<p>

"I want a life with you, so badly, so much it scares me... I'm terrified that you won't want it or worse, that you will, but you won't realize it until it's too late."

He can't quite make out where they are- the workbench in the garage perhaps?- but she's seated beside him, it's afternoon and he feels the warmth of the sun on his back. The scene comes through like filtered light, muddied by dust-covered window panes, but full of motion and a little magical.

"I have this picture in my head. Sometimes I see it when we're talking, just us two. It's many years in the future- how many, I don't know. We meet on the street. Again, I don't know where or why our paths cross. You're in a purple coat and hat. It's not one I've ever seen you in. We pass each other and it's clear we're not... "

This part is difficult to say, even though she is attentive and sweetly, preemptively understanding of this confused rambling that not even he can comprehend. He continues. "We have our own lives, our own business, wherever we are. You look at me and- "

He stops, struggles to explain, searches for the word. "There are no words, but I can see in your eyes, there's _anguish_. And even though you don't speak, I hear your voice in my head- maybe it's your voice saying my thoughts, I don't know- asking, '_Why didn't you fight harder_?'"

She nods a little, takes his hand and holds it, somehow lightly and firmly at once, let's him know they could be her words too. He concludes, "It kills me, because this-_us_, _here_, _now-_ is a stolen moment, as fleeting as a chance encounter on the street, and if we don't take it, _now_, I'm afraid that will be our future."

It took all he had to admit his fear that he might be inadequate, his fear that he might fail. He could accept failure if failure for them nonetheless resulted in happiness for her. But to fail her, to be inadequate at preventing her anguish- for that, he could never forgive himself. He can't look at her, lest she be looking at him piteously, so he looks at a stain on the floor.

He feels her shift a quarter-turn in his direction and then she drapes her arms around his neck, drops her forehead to his and sighs. She's wearing gray- not purple- that plain gray nurse's uniform, which fills him with relief. He responds in kind, closes his eyes and murmurs, "We would be so good together."

She smiles as if he's just said the silliest thing she's ever heard. "We _are_ so good together," she corrects. She becomes serious again, pulls herself closer, brushes her lips against his. "I do love you," she professes solemnly. "Madly." He kisses back this time. It's not passionate; there's no longing, no desperation, no need for seizure. "So much, for so long." Rather, it's familiar, an owner's kiss, an impossible memory of all the customary good mornings and goodnights, hellos and farewells of a life yet unrealized.

He wakes up anxious.

* * *

><p>She did not visit the next day, but he knew he would see her at the concert that night. He waited all day and then had to suffer through three interminable hours of songs unheard and skits unwatched. He tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look at him. She smiled at everyone, chatted with the patients, joined in for the chorus. He spied her and Lady Mary start a conversation behind the chairs, cowered as they removed their masks of pleasantry, replaced by looks of irritation mixed with impatience. He wondered, with a heavy heart, what had caused it.<p>

It felt like the concert would never end, but of course it did. As the crowd dispersed, he walked over to her, discreetly touched her elbow, and asked in a low voice, "Could I speak with you for a moment?" She turned around to face him; for a second, he thought she was going to punch him. _That answers the question of whether she slept off any of her offense._ "Please?" She sighed irascibly. He decided to make a practical appeal. "Would you prefer I say it here, in front of everyone?"

"Fine," she acquiesced without giving an inch.

"Could you come to the garage in-"

"No," she cut him off. "Wait outside behind the willow tree- it can't be seen from the window." _She didn't say__"we" this time_. "I'll come when I'm done."

He did as he was instructed and waited. He stood in the shadow of the mammoth tree, its branches waltzing in the wind, for probably an hour, but he expected that, he understood this was an act of contrition. The golden lamps of the big, grand house twinkled in the distance. Finally, she emerged from the front door, the light flanking her like stars, and walked at pace to meet him.

"Well?" It was clear she was prepared to let this be as brutal as possible.

He took a deep breath and launched into the speech he'd been preparing all day and practicing by himself for the past hour. "I owe you an apology for what I said last night."

"About what?" she interrupted, petulant and impersonal, which they were both well aware was the most severe punishment she could possibly administer.

"About your work," he answered carefully. "I didn't mean it, I'm ashamed that I said it, and I am very, very sorry."

She shrugged. "You're entitled to think what you think."

"Sybil, _stop._" Giving her an order was apparently all it took to get her to drop the impassive pretense. Her whole posture shifted and suddenly, they were fighting. "It's not what I think."

"Then why did you say it!" she demanded.

"I shouldn't have-"

"No, you shouldn't have!" she raged. "But that's not what I asked you. That's not what I'm interested in." She looked at him, emotion visibly rising to the surface. "Why did you say it? _How _could you say it, after all that I've..." Her voice broke and her eyes brimmed with tears. "It's one thing for Papa to ridicule my work, he's never understood," she said, the back of her hand quickly disposing of an errant teardrop. "But you?" He wanted to die.

"I'm so sorry, Sybil, so very sorry. I've seen you at the hospital, how good you are with the patients, how much the doctors depend on you. Even Thomas- Thomas!- who never gives anyone any credit, looks up to you."Nothing he said seemed to be dampening her ire. He tried to get her to look at him. "I know how hard you worked to be where you are. I don't know if you know how proud I am of you. Have I ever told you that? Because I am." She seemed to be listening, at least, but her rigid stance showed no sign of abating. "That's why it was such a terribly stupid thing to say," he acknowledged ruefully.

"No." She was jittery, pacing in place. "Saying the sky is green is a terribly stupid thing to say. This was much worse than that."

"I know." He took the reprimand without quarrel. "It was a terribly insulting thing to say-"

"It was a terribly hurtful thing to say. It _hurt_."

"I know." He swallowed hard. "I would never want to hurt you."

She twitched. "I think part of you does want to hurt me because I've hurt you."

"That's not-"

"Haven't I hurt you?" she charged.

He shifted uncomfortably, not sure where this was coming from or where it was headed. "I don't believe you've ever intended to hurt me."

"Again, not what I asked." She stopped moving, stared him down. "Didn't I hurt you? When I didn't say yes?"

There was fury and maybe a little malice in her eyes. He wondered how and why this conversation devolved into whatever was happening right now. "What do you want me to say?" he spluttered.

"The truth would do!" Then, with a defeated half-laugh, she came to her own conclusion. "You don't have to say it, it's all over your face."

"What's all over my face? Humiliation? Is that what you're looking for?"

"What I'm looking for is a little credit!" She ran a hand across her forehead; she seemed too angry to cry and too upset to argue. "You're not the only one fighting you know. It's hard for me too."

He wore his heart (and most of his thoughts, unfortunately) on his sleeve, but somehow she always managed to sear him, at exactly the right moment and with an astonishing economy of words, with an honest rendering of the situation. It was true; he had asked more of her than any person deserved to have asked of them. He wouldn't take it back, but he should do well to keep it in mind. "I know that," he said with regret.

"Do you? Do you, really?" The belligerence finally receded from her voice. "Because sometimes I don't feel you do. You say 'too high a price' like it's nothing."

He thought that a little unfair. "I've never said it's nothing," he noted defensively. "I would never say it's nothing, leaving your country, your home, your family. It's not nothing. It's an incredibly hard thing to do. I just know it can be done."

"I'm not you." The firmness with which she said that made him fear it was a cloaked "no."

"No, you're not. I should think I'd be very annoyed if you were," he teased, skirting her declaration. "A man who disobeys me and can't seem to hide his heart, no matter how much I tell him to." She almost smiled at that, so he went back to the beginning. "Sybil, truly- I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry I hurt you. I just hope I didn't break your trust."

"Alright." She didn't say any more as to whether she accepted his apology or trusted him still, but she didn't walk away either. So he waited. A breeze came through; the dancing willow surrounding them picked up. One long arm swept across her and she caught it, held the plush branch in her hand. "Do you know what they used to use the sap for?" He shook his head. "Pain killer." He shuffled, put his hands in his pockets. She released the branch and it swung back.

"It's very naive to think they'll just come around. My family, that is." He started to protest, but she pressed on. "It's not just about my leaving. It's about what would be said, the scandal it would bring to our house. The constant, merciless gossip: that I'd got myself in trouble and had to leave, that you were scheming for money, that I had done things that would make me ineligible for a respectable marriage."

"But we would know none of those things are true."

"I know _you_ wouldn't care about that and I wouldn't care about what people said about me. But my parents would care, very much. So would my sisters and my grandmother. They would never escape it. Every mention of the Crawley name would be followed by the scandalous story of that wanton daughter, that one that ran off with the chauffeur, _'take care to make sure your daughter never turns out like her.'_ And what of Mary and Edith, if I did go? There would be no more driving, no more freedoms, no more opinions allowed at Downton, that's certain. They would probably hate me and I wouldn't blame them."

More reasons; but he was determined to try and dispatch them in a better way this time. "I won't pretend to understand what it would be like- I've never been in a Mayfair ballroom. I believe what you say. But do you really think that your family's happiness should come at the cost of your own?"

She means the next words as much as any she's ever uttered. "I don't know what I think about anything right now."

* * *

><p>Back at the house, she pulled a chair over to her window and put her head on her arms on the sill, like she used to when she was a child.<p>

She hadn't even cared that much when he said it. She hadn't liked to hear it, of couse, but she chalked it up to typical Branson, hot-headed, his mouth always a step ahead of his mind. She had said as much to Mary last night, after it happened, when they were talking in her room.

But as the day wore on, she had become more and more agitated; she was at once too mad to want to talk to him and mad that he had forced her to punish him with silence. How nonsensical was that? His pleading, ocular appeals during the concert had almost sent her into apoplexy. The more he said to apologize, the more insufficient it sounded. She wanted to smack him, to shake him, to...

_Oh_, it was so obvious.

What she wanted was contact.

He could say so much if more if they just stopped talking. She was tired of talking, tired of thinking. How was she supposed to _think_ of an answer? What if he had just said_ "I'm sorry"_ and then embraced her, and she could just stay there for a minute, or more, and see how it felt. She thought it would be so much easier for her to communicate that way.

But _they_ couldn't do that. It's not an option for _them. _And that's really what set her off. She was tasked to make the most consequential choice of her life, one that came at such a heavy, heavy cost- _and __I can't __be wrong_. Whatever she chooses, either way, it's for life; it can't be taken back. But they're locked in a chessboard stalemate, a square apart, unable to move, unable to _check_, and it's starting to feel like she'll be forever unable to find out what she wants.


	16. Chapter 16: July 1918

_Thank you so much for the response to the last chapter! Here is 2x05._

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><p><strong>July 1918<strong>

In the last summer of the war, revolution was everywhere.

On an afternoon in the garage, in the same month that America broke from Britain and France brought down its Bastille, one revolutionary fire was set aflame as another flickered out to ashes.

Perhaps the weather was to blame; it was wickedly hot.

* * *

><p>He was not in the mood for amour. He was grieving, though he had not yet intellectualized it as such, and the first stage of grief is denial. That's the why all the words after "TSAR AND FAMILY EXECUTED" blurred on the page. That's why he seemed to defend it- the birth pains of a new world, some blood must be shed, no mother's ever said her newborn wasn't worth it. A better future is worth it, surely worth even this terrible, terrible sacrifice.<p>

He saw the way she was looking at him, knew what was behind that look. On any other day, he would have leaped for it; the way she hung there in the moment, staring at his mouth, suggested she was waiting for him to move. Maybe she didn't know what to do next, or maybe her ideas of propriety prohibited her from advancing on him. But on _this_ day, her desire- so unquestionably, exquisitely revealed- came as anticlimatic, it fell like a pebble down a deep well, the splash barely registering at the surface.

But he did want to hold her, to hold onto one hope, one ideal, that still lives and breathes, because he knew, even then, that the rest were buried somewhere in unmarked grave in a backwater place he would never see called Ekaterinburg.

* * *

><p>She didn't know any of that.<p>

She did not see that he didn't want to talk, how he stayed seated when she came in, how he returned to his paper as soon as the pick-up details were discussed. She did not hear how reluctantly he asked after William after she pushed, uninvited, into his space. She was walking on broken glass, shards of shattered beliefs littered around him, but she didn't hear or see that either.

She only _felt-_ his hand and what it did to her- it was the only sense she had left as everything else faded to detail.

* * *

><p>She left in a snit, though her annoyance or upset or rejection followed her desire down the well and into oblivion. He had no spare angst today to fret about how he was failing to adequately manage Sybil's mercurial moods and meet all of her emotional demands from his position an arm's length away.<p>

He took the paper and went home. He entered his room and was struck with queasiness when he saw the piles of newspapers in the far corner; it almost felt like they were laughing at him now. He had saved them all, the London and Yorkshire dailys, the occasional Irish or foreign paper, his own personal chronicle of history.

He gingerly perused the most yellowed stack, the papers from early 1917, when he had first come to believe revolution was inevitable in Russia. He scanned the headlines he knew by heart: "TSAR ORDERS DOZENS OF DEMONSTRATORS SHOT" - "RUSSIAN SOLDIERS REFUSE TO FIRE ON FELLOW CITIZENS" - "RUSSIAN MONARCHY FALLS" - "TSAR, SON ABDICATE THRONE"- "REVOLUTION VICTORIOUS, NEW GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE FORMED." As hollow as he felt now, he could not suppress the muscle memory of hope and triumph that had swelled in him when he had read the news for the first time.

His eyes fell on a photo insert, a middle-aged peasant woman with a baby in one hand and a protest sign in the other. The caption translated the words: _DIGNITY-EQUALITY-BREAD_. He recollected another triumvirate, in a deep rumbling brogue, from a place far from here and a time long since gone, the voice of the priest in his ears as he numbly drew pictures in the margins of his catechism, praying _If there is a God, let this blasted class be over_:

_"Faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."_

* * *

><p>As she entered her room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked like she had just run a full sprint, even though she had only walked the short distance from the garage back to the house. Her face was flushed, her pupils wide, her hair curling a little around her face from the heat. Her heart was racing and her breathing... <em>W<em>_ell,_ the nurse thought, _as the heart speeds up, so does breathing, harder, faster and more deeply. To breathe harder, one must open one's mouth_.

"How terribly convenient," she spoke softly, smiling to herself, "this human design." She recalled the time she saw a beating heart on the operating table, how perfect it was, impossibly intricate, everything working in concert. _Love makes the heart race to quicken a kiss_. "Terribly convenient and terribly, terribly clever."

* * *

><p>The ghost of his hand proved relentless. It had followed her home, into her room, onto the bed where she now lay in her nightdress on top of the coverlet. It stalked her, made it impossible to sleep, impossible to read or to think of anything else. It joined with its pair and moved in tandem, tangling in her hair, dragging down her face, tickling her neck, tracing circles around her collarbone and then lower. It taunted her tummy, its thumb brushing over her hip bone, making a mockery of the notion of an unsolicited touch.<p>

He had withdrawn his hand into his pocket this afternoon, but what if he hadn't? What would it be like if that hand were here now, its owner seated on the edge of the bed, leaning in, leaning down, pressing his mouth to hers...

Her hand flew in shock to cover her mouth, but of course no one was around to hear the sound she had just accidentally expelled.

She sat up, shaking her head. _A cool bath would do. _But she couldn't help but imagine what would transpire if he were here tonight, with so many hours before dawn and no one awake to know.

* * *

><p>He was being chased by an entirely different type of ghost.<p>

Five ghosts to be exact- the ghosts of the Romanov children. Maybe the ghosts of their parents too. And the ghost of his own cocksure belief that it didn't make political sense for the architects of the new world to hurt them. But the family had been hauled down to the cellar, one terrifying night, seated against the wall as if posing for a portrait, and summarily executed. There was so much gunfire that the smoke and sulfur had forced the shooters, staggering for breath, from the room. And then, the next line in the article that he knew he would never get over, _they went back in_.

* * *

><p>As the water rushed into the bathtub, she thought about the last time her body had taken control, when she was 12. She had an American mother and two older sisters, so when she felt it, she was pretty sure she knew what it was. She had dropped her embroidery and run from the room so fast she almost knocked over the tea service. Locked in her bathroom, she found her body- which she worked so hard to train and shape and constrict and moderate, to force to bend to her will- had indeed provided undeniable evidence of its independence. It had decided it was time for her to grow up, it had not asked for her input and it didn't care that she didn't approve of its timing. Nearly a decade later, she confirmed it had done so- more demurely, but just as undeniably- again.<p>

But this time, she didn't put her head in her hands in despair, shouting at a parade of inquirers to_ "Leave me alone please!"_ until the only person she wanted to confide in, to comfort her, came and she unlocked the door.

Although maybe, in a way, it wasn't all that different.

* * *

><p>Salt burned his eyes as he stared at their faces.<p>

The oldest, Olga, was 22; her sister, Tatiana, 21, just about Sybil's age. They had both been volunteer nurses with the Red Cross in Russia; he'd seen pictures of them in their nursing uniforms in the newspaper. The youngest, the former heir to the throne, was just 14, but still old enough to know what was happening when a team of armed men burst in. Someone read aloud a verdict from a sham court- their relatives had been found guilty of conspiring to overthrow the nascent revolutionary government and it had been judged they should die in consequence.

That the executioners had delayed the death sentence, subjected these poor, quivering souls to several minutes or more of _living_ with their murders, all for the self-righteous vanity of a new government on a victory lap, disgusted him.

* * *

><p>In the bath, she takes stock of herself for probably the first time since that original change. She's pretty- enough people have said so that she believes it- but is she attractive? What is attractive to men? What do they want behind closed doors? <em>What does he want<em>?

She had no idea, although her work had provided her with a surprisingly comprehensive cache of information about sex. However, she suspected most of the exploits the soldiers boasted about came courtesy of a few pound notes and she's not clear what's permissible, or desirable, for a woman to do to demonstrate her feelings in the context of a love relation.

* * *

><p>All night he thought about the Romanov daughters, born around the same time and into similar privilege as Sybil. Had someone loved them? Had they ever been in love? Surely at some point they had been made hopeful or foolish by their feelings, as everyone was. He thought not just of his own beloved daughter of privilege, but of Lady Mary and Lady Edith.<p>

He saw how Lady Mary suffered the hopefulness and foolishness of her love for Matthew in silence, to preserve the chilly facade that was expected of her, even though everyone knew, anyone with eyes could see it. Lady Mary, for all the outward imperiousness and classicism she displayed, had shown him great decency in some critical moments. Besides the fact that he was still employed, with no one the wiser, months after she found out he had proposed to her baby sister, there was that strange, unspoken compact they had forged the night of the count. He had come to take her Crawley House and to Sybil; she in turn, had promised to let him know how Sybil got on. The chauffeur had no right to ask and standing in the moonlit drive, he could see her weigh his request. She decided to treat him as a person, and not as a chauffeur, and granted it. He would never forget that and because of it, an ill-word against Lady Mary Crawley would never, ever cross his lips.

He saw how Lady Edith had never frustrated, never quit, when she was learning how to drive, although she was not a natural. But wasn't that the story of her whole life? A daughter who, born into any other family, would have been praised as pretty and bright had the misfortune of being born into the shadow of Lady Mary's stony perfection. Yet Lady Edith bore the daily humiliation of being the least of three by turning inward and with her own quiet strength.

The Romanov children were human too, just like the Crawley children he knew, but they had been denied their humanity in that cellar.

He couldn't imagine it, for it was truly unimaginable, but he thought it would be many days before he could walk by the staircase that led down to the servants' quarters without his stomach churning and the smell of sulfur singeing his nostrils.

* * *

><p>His little snipe about "randy officers" a few months back had been absolutely accurate. Good grief, one of her primary duties was to bathe the men when they arrived after months at the front- many, many, lonely months, far away from the fairer sex. What do you think happened with those who weren't too wounded to be aware of the warm water and a woman's hands? She remembered the first time she had to do it; she had been quite surprised (curious too, as anyone would be) and the supervising nurse had pulled her aside afterward, instructing her that <em>"It's a perfectly normal, natural response, Nurse Crawley. Man is a sexual creature. Don't take any offense, don't even notice it."<em>

In fact, all Sybil had taken offense to was the assertion that _man_ was a sexual creature.

She was surrounded by bodies in her work, whether it was in the bathtub or in the unmistakable sounds that came sometimes from under the blankets, when she sat at the desk on the nightshift, updating patient ledgers and supply order forms, pretending (as all the night nurses did) not to hear. Then there were the tutorials that came during the nurses' smoke breaks (yes, she had smoked on occasion; it's just what they did and what else could one do to take the edge off after seeing some of the things they had seen?) riffing about their own marriages, or other's affairs, or _ahem_, the non-combat maladies of the soldiers. Through these sessions out back by the brick wall, she came to know there were types of sex that carried no threat of pregnancy, things one could use to prevent it in the traditional type, and that having sex with a person from France could lead to wretched infections _down there_. (No soldier ever credited anyone but the French for their condition; thankfully, she had not heard anyone mention the Irish).

But the asymmetry of what she knew, versus what was actually known to her, could not have been greater. The question was how- and when- she would start to close that gap. She rested her cheek against the cool ceramic and sighed.

* * *

><p><em>DIGNITY-EQUALITY-BREAD<em>. The last word rended his heart; it was what had motivated him to take up the fight in the first place. He had seen firsthand the unspeakable degradation of poverty, babies back home who were fed white bottles, like all babies, except theirs were water colored with a spoonful of flour because their fathers had no money for milk and their mothers were too malnourished to provide it. This was the inheritance of his parents' generation, the children who had survived the English-exacerbated famine that had eliminated nearly a third of a population. No mouse has ever been so cleanly killed.

The byline on the article with the picture of the peasant-woman protester, like the byline on today's cover story and so many others, was Mr. Edwin Boggs, the Russia correspondent for the major London paper. He almost felt like he knew him personally, as he had spent at least a few days a week digesting his reports and observations on the unfolding revolution, which were by far the most insightful of any he had read.

He was not sure what compelled him to write, but he picked up the pen nonetheless.

_Dear Mr. Boggs,_

_I've followed your reporting from Russia with great interest..._

He explained how the reports from Russia have changed his opinion. He composed the question that must be asked: how do they answer for this atrocity, when the entire revolution was premised on the idea of _universal_ human dignity? The revolution was not fought to swap the indignity of the poor for the dignity of the rich; it was fought because dignity was the birthright of all human beings, rich or poor, irrespective of class. Transcendence of class must be believed to be possible in both directions. _Like Sybil, with her beautiful soul that wanted instinctively to help, to heal, who had never once used her station against him; she would not deserve to be judged for who she was born as instead of who she had become._

The dead Romanov children did not deserve to suffer for who they were born as and even if they had never wanted for bread a day in their lives, they deserved to have the world bear witness to the injustice done to them in that dark room below stairs. He thanked Mr. Boggs for bearing witness for them.

He concluded the letter was a jumble of disjointed impressions and reactions, but he had to write it, seal and send it; it was a profession of lost faith, his own self-imposed excommunication.

* * *

><p>She stepped out of the bath, put her nightdress back on, studied her reflection in the mirror. What she had not been able to figure out in her mind was now literally staring her in the face.<p>

She knew it was not a reflexive response; she had seen Mary, many times, visibly saying no- to Patrick, to Evelyn Napier, to Richard Carlisle- even when her words were saying yes. Daisy to William looked very much a no. Even Edith with Sir Anthony Strallan, clearly proposing to want it, seemed strangely vacant in all the nonverbal ways.

None of them looked the way she was looking right now.

A look that would send her father into a conniption and probably threatening to send her off to a convent.

It was very much, undeniably, in every way, _yes_.

So that was the answer then.


	17. Chapter 17: August 1918 Part I

_Note: thank you so much as always for reading and for the kind reviews! This is 2x06- what happens before, to set up the very evident change in their relationship in the 2x06 conversation._

_Also, just to answer a few qs: yes, the story will continue thru the CS (so it will include the wedding, the pregnancy, etc- anything that won't step on canon and or series 3) and YES the Robert issue will be dealt with, starting with this sequence in fact. Stay tuned!_

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><p><strong>(Epilogue) July 1918<strong>

Neither of them slept much the next few nights, which left them both tired and sluggish in the next few days, constantly playing catch up in their work at Downton- she in the convalescent ward, he out in the yard- and so they didn't see each other until almost a week later, when she came to relay information about a visitor and a train. He smiled to himself because that's why she came the last time too.

"How are you?" she asked, after the details had been discussed. "You seemed very upset the last time we spoke."

"So did you."

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and averted her gaze. She had played the scene out with alternate ends so many times in her mind over the less few days... and nights. _He puts his hand on her waist and pulls her closer, he puts his hand on her waist and she pulls him down..._ This garage has become a portal to another world that she, they, haven't ventured into yet, but she worried that her eyes are like a keyhole and he'll be able to see in, know the thoughts she's been thinking about them. But if she's being honest, is she really _worried_ about that?

He noticed, but didn't note it; the urge to push just wasn't there anymore. Sending the letter had proved an effective release (not unlike another kind of release, though he was starting to forget what _that_ felt like), it had emptied his mind of all its warring thoughts about means and ends, atrocities and ideals, what is desired and what can actually be achieved. It was the best kind of letter to send: the one that was an end to itself, it had to be said, so he had written it. He had no thought as to a reply, as he didn't expect one. He felt surprisingly light in the ensuing days. But that wasn't the only reason. He had also made a decision. He just hadn't told her yet.

"I worked it out," he told her with a small smile.

She smiled back broadly, relieved and a little flirty. "As did I."

"Good, then. So we're all right?"

"Yes. We are all right."

* * *

><p><strong>Late August 1918<strong>

Weeks passed and they were still, indeed, all right. But Sybil was starting to feel restless- the war was waning and so was the work- she still put in a lot of hours, because she wanted to, but it wasn't nearly as busy or interesting as it used to be. It made her feel horribly guilty to think such things; of course, the very best thing in the world would be for the work to stop, which would mean the injuring and maiming had stopped, the war had stopped. But she had started to think about what she would do when the work stopped. She wanted to believe she could do anything- take the opportunity to try a new occupation or perhaps a new post where she could use her experience in medicine (would the hospital in Ripon give her job?)- but the knot in her stomach told her all she would able to do, allowed to do, was nothing.

And Branson never seemed to be around when she wanted to vent. _Does driving the occupants of Downton suddenly demand twice as much of your attention_? she had fumed one recent night, after her third attempt to seek him to no avail. But a look at the clock confirmed it was not work keeping him away, he was just spending less and less of his free time in the garage. _Less time waiting around for her. _He brushed it off whenever she mentioned it and she didn't like his caginess. When they were together, she tried to be more forward, asking (if not actually _asking_) for his attention, but he was being unacceptably stingy of late.

Bluntly, it felt like he had cooled in pursuing her and she did not like it, not one bit.

Luckily, she was working a night shift tonight so she had the afternoon free to bother him in the garage, whether he liked it or not. He was in a good mood, as usual of late (which irked her; nothing in their situation warranted a newfound peace of spirit), working on something under the motor while she rested her elbows on the hood, talking over the clinking and clanging of metal.

After one particularly loud adjustment, he slid out from underneath the car and started searching through the boxes of springs and bolts on the table. "It's my birthday tomorrow," she informed him.

He grinned over his shoulder. "I know."

She narrowed her eyes. "How do you know?"

"I've been here for five years," he reminded her. "I notice things."

"Oh?" she responded, lolling her face on her palm. "When's Edith's birthday?"

He stopped, then turned. "Some things I notice more than others." The way he looked at her made her shiver with delight. But he turned round again and went back to whatever he was doing.

"Five years," she mused, shaking her head. "Time passes quickly, doesn't it?"

He quirked an eyebrow at "_quickly,_" but said only, "I'll agree it adds up."

She ignored that and continued, "I was sixteen when you came here- that was a good one, sixteen. I wore a blue dress, I remember, my parents gave me a sapphire necklace and we had lemon cake. I remember thinking about the future and all that was coming up- the vote, my season, and I don't know, finally feeling like I was coming into myself." He nodded, almost bashful, recalling how he had once taken that girl's hand, in breach of all propriety, at the garden party. _His employer's daughter_. How young she was then! How young they both were. How concerned he was that she would fall in love in with him, follow him around with tearful proclamations. Oh, if he had only known.

"It's strange how birthdays are," she contemplated. "They're always about the future, but sometimes they're about the past too. They can make you a bit wistful. It's kind of like- well, I wouldn't know what to do with my old toys if you put them in front of me now, God knows how I used to pass hours on end with them, but somehow, it makes me sad to think of them all shuttered up in the nursery, gathering dust." He seemed like he didn't quite know what to say, so she shook it off. "But enough about that. How have you been?"

"Well, actually," he began, reaching for a rag to wipe his hands, "I was wondering if I could ask your opinion on something."

"Of course you can," she answered, excited by the animation she saw coming over his face. "What is it?"

"Wait here." He ran out of the garage, presumably to his cottage. She sat down on the workbench, thinking of how familiar the smell of engine oil and wax had become to her. She liked this garage. It was cramped and dusty, with cobwebs in the corners and dirt on the windowpanes, but it was cozy and it felt... alive, humming with smells and sweat and activity. Her rumination was aborted when he returned, clutching a letter in his hand. Now, she was very curious.

"Where to start?" he asked rhetorically. "You know I like to read the newspapers."

"Yes, I've noticed."

"So I wrote a letter to the Russia correspondent for the London paper- on a whim really, I certainly didn't expect a response. But he wrote me back."

"How exciting!" She took the envelope from his hand, examining the stamps and the exotic return address. "What did he say?"

"That's the thing," he said, crossing his arms. "He asked about my profession and I'm not sure what to write back. I thought you might have an idea. Especially because of the inquiries you helped Gwen make."

"May I read it?"

"Of course." He settled back against the car as she took it out and started to read. It was long- two and a quarter pages- that was the first thing she noticed. The tone was familiar and conversational, as if it were a reply to a friend and not a random reader. But what struck her most was how clearly impressed this foreign correspondent for one of the world's premiere newspapers was with whatever Tom Branson had written to him.

_"Your thoughts on bearing witness were eloquently expressed and I thank you for that..." _

_"__The Clausewitz reference was clever- that book made a very deep impression on me at university..." _

_"__Politics is for idealists, journalism for skeptics, we are not blind believers, we demand to see to believe. That might make us doubting Thomases, but this world needs all the Thomases it can get." _

"A doubting Thomas?" she recited aloud, raising an eyebrow. "Is that what you are?"

"Maybe more than I'd care to admit," he confessed. "Maybe more than I was aware of."

That surprised her. "I wouldn't have thought so. I'd have pegged you for an idealist, through and through."

"People change. Things change them."

"Yes, they do," she demured and went back to reading.

As she skimmed over the contents, only some of which were comprehensible to her (because she had not read the original letter, but also because she had no reference for most of the many glancing historical references), she found her heart swelling with pride, pride in his accomplishment, but also pride because this important person writing from Moscow had clearly recognized in one letter what she had known for years, that he had a keen mind and potential, that he was someone who would make something of himself.

She came to the last paragraph, the one he was worrying over:

_"I must confess, I almost never return letters from readers, but yours had an unusual quality to it. I wonder, are you a teacher or a historian, or perhaps a writer for one of the Yorkshire papers? Your letter didn't say. I started my career reporting for the Doncaster Record, so I have rather a soft spot for any journalist toiling away at a sleepy local paper. If that's the case, send along some clippings- no doubt they'll be good, and I can charge my editor a finder's fee." _

"So a very important journalist thinks you're a find? That's wonderful!"

"Well, he thinks I'm a journalist, which I'm obviously not," he pointed out. As realistic as he was that this would probably amount to nothing, she was sitting here looking so pleased- dare he say, proud of him- and the way that made him feel inside was worth the world.

"But he's obviously interested in what you think- and _how_ you think- and isn't that what's most important?"

"He might not be interested in when he finds out I'm a chauffeur with only a degree from St. Stephen's secondary school."

"Why? I don't have a degree from any school."

"_You_ don't need to."

She cringed because she knew it was true; she knew, from helping Gwen, that the only letters that truly commanded people's attention were _l-a-d-y_. Still, as with Gwen, she was full of confidence about his prospects. "Neither do lots of other people. You should be proud of it. He's obviously impressed with you," she said. "He might be more impressed when he learns you are somewhat self-educated. It shows ambition. And that's a necessary trait for a journalist, isn't it?"

She looked up at him. "Are you an aspiring journalist?"

"I suppose I hadn't really considered it, though it seems obvious, considering my interests and my appetite for news, doesn't it?" He put his hands in his pockets and leaned his head back. "But I always thought I would work in politics, in some capacity."

"Covering politics could be a capacity," she offered, then added, "I think journalism suits you, suits your temperament."

He chortled. "Dare I ask what you mean by that?"

"You'll forgive me for saying so, but I have at times questioned whether you had the stomach for politics. Not the _appetite_," she impressed, "but the stomach. To use your own words- if cars bled, you'd not be a chauffeur. There's blood in politics, especially right now, and you don't like blood. You don't like it with the Tsar's family and you didn't like in Ripon."

"Ripon was different," he countered evenly.

"Even before the count," she insisted, "you didn't like the pushing and shoving and shouting, whereas I think I was a little spoiling for a fight. Even after I got hurt- though my head ached something awful and the reprimand from my parents certainly wasn't any fun- when I saw that wound in the mirror, it was kind of satisfying in a way," she admitted, feeling a bit perverse for doing so. "I felt like I had earned my opinion. Or something. But it didn't make me shy away. Quite the opposite. It made me even more committed. I said as much to Papa when I fought with him that night."

"I don't know what it says about my politics or my stomach, but it makes me sick to think about that day. I don't know if I'll ever get over the sound of your skull cracking against the table or seeing you unconscious on the ground." He didn't have to say what else; it was in his voice, on his face. "I'm glad you don't remember it, but it was truly an awful couple of hours before you came to and started talking and I knew you would be just fine."

An awkward beat passed. She felt chastened by how much he had cared, even if not yet in that way, even then. "Well," she spoke again, after a minute, "about the letter."

"Yes. The letter."

"I think- here's what I think. I think you are too focused on the professional question. He was friendly to you- your reply should meet him as a friend. Re-engage him on the topic, remind him that you're a worthy conversation partner- he wrote you two pages after all. Then, towards the end, answer his question concisely and matter-of-fact, you graduated from secondardy school and after that went to work, and are now employed as Lord Grantham's driver, which affords you unlimited access to his very excellent library to pursue your interest in history and politics."

"Huh." He ran a hand over his face. "That's quite good."

"I would also ask him about his own career. It seems rather impossible to become a famous foreign correspondent for the most widely-read paper in the world, but a reporter for the _Doncaster Record_? You could do that. You have to start somewhere, after all. Perhaps he could help. Maybe you should send him a sample of what you would write, even if it's not been published."

"I'm way ahead of you on that. That's what I've been so busy with."

"We often have the same ideas about things," she observed. He raised an eyebrow, sending her eyes back down to the letter.

"I was accepted into University College Dublin, though I never attended," he told her. "But I passed my examinations. Do you think I should mention that?"

"I think you should," she nodded. "But don't apologize or plead with him. You're not writing a love letter to an opera diva. Write to him as an equal, as a friend. He is a... _colleague_. Or he might be someday," she predicted, eyes dancing.

"Thanks, boss. You'd make a pretty shrewd editor, I'd imagine."

"I never knew you were accepted to university." Except for a few humorous, carefully-carved anecdotes, he never talked about his childhood in Ireland. He spoke sometimes about his siblings, but never about his parents- she knew nothing about them except that his mother was still alive. But the passion with which he spoke about the poor made her think he was intimately acquainted with their plights. Not that he would ever say it, of course. "Do you ever yearn for the life you could have had?" she asked softly.

"Never," he answered resolutely, giving her a smile that made her melt. "Because at that time, there was a girl across the sea, riding horses and breaking rules, and if I had been reading Latin instead of learning engines, I would never have met her." She saw how pleased with himself he was, witnessing the effect his words were having on her. But to his surprise, she didn't shrink at this profession; she wanted to hear it now, so he finished, "And that was worth it, even if she doesn't say yes."

"You're speaking in the past tense," she noticed, not breaking the intense stare passing between them.

"I actually think it's the future perfect," he said, voice soft. "Tense, that is." She realized he was making fun of her and she glowered at him. "What?" he laughed. "The grammar lessons are endless in real school!"

"Don't cheek your editor." She mock-pushed the letter into his chest and his jocular front was belied when her fingers felt, even through the paper, just how fast his heart was beating.


	18. Chapter 18: August 1918 Part II

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! _

_This is a little entr'acte of Robert/Sybil prologue to set the stage for what goes down in S2 (with thanks to Chickwriter for the ever-astute observation that inspired it)._

* * *

><p><strong>Late August 1918<strong>

She leaned back against the pillows and sighed. It's her birthday today. She is twenty-one.

_How much has changed in the past few years- and then, how much hasn't changed_, she thought, stretching one arm ruefully across the empty bed with the canopy, the same bed she'd been sleeping in since she was a child, the bed that these days seemed really too big for just one.

But from the vantage point of the now too-big bed, she saw almost her whole life: the photos of her family on the dresser, including her favorite one of her mother and her grandmother at the port in New York City, an ocean liner bound for Southhampton behind them; a drawing of her horse Edith had made to cheer her up once when she had been punished, sent to her room and forbidden to ride; pressed flowers in frames, the ones Mary had sneaked out of her balls and put it in her hair as she regaled her with the romantic exploits of the evening; a ceramic elephant wearing a fez her father had brought her back from London when she was five.

Her whole life was in this room, this house, although the locus of that life was now somewhere down the sloping yard and so these mementos seemed stangely remote to her, like a lost planet drifting out of orbit and into the abyss.

She tried to muster some enthusiasm for her birthday, but the only attention she's wants will come during whatever fleeting minutes she can find to visit the garage. Spare time will be hard to find today because she's working in the ward in the morning and afternoon and at night, there's an elaborate dinner with the family and surely some after-dinner gift presentation.

At dinner recently, she had tried to insist that she did not want anything and certainly did not need anything (that could be purchased at a shop by her parents, that is), that agreeing to the convalescent ward is truly the most meaningful gift her parents have ever given her, but if they really, really, feel compelled to reward her for being born, donating to the Red Cross would be very much appreciated. Her father's jaw had stiffened with annoyance as she expressed this and her mother's attention moved from her to her father, and then her parents were quite clearly having a silent conversation about her in front of her. Mary and Edith stared into their glasses as she tried to explain she wasn't meaning to be ungrateful and then Granny announced to the table, "_At least she's not asking for a Franciscan robe," _before muttering, "_though maybe she's saving that for Christmas._" She wanted to quibble with the assertion that forgoing a birthday gift was equivalent to a lifelong vow of poverty, but she had already upset her father so she stayed silent. That was, after all, how her family preferred it.

_Better just get it over with_, she decided, sitting up and wishing more than anything that it's night and it's over, and she can crawl back into bed and wake up tomorrow, on an ordinary day.

* * *

><p>Down the hall, Robert is also just getting up, though he has been awake for an hour, maybe two, lying still on the pillow next to Cora, blinking into the darkness that was being quickly erased by the morning light and thinking.<p>

This day has always been a bittersweet one for him.

Bitter, because it make him remember his increasingly-insistent pronouncements during the final months of a pregnancy passed right here, in this very room- "_This one's a boy, Cora, I know it_!" His wife, despite her very evident wariness, had played along: when Robert had leaned over in the morning and asked after their boy, she had answered; when he had touched her stomach exclaiming, "_He's a strong one- kicks like a mule_!" she had laughed along, though her nervousness was belied in her eyes.

If his mother had known about all that, she would have caned him- traditionalists do not tempt fate. And if she had known, she certainly would have judged that he had caused his wife to be brought to her knees in labor almost a month early, twelve awful hours of holding his breath and pacing the floor, finally bringing forth an impossibly tiny infant that looked the same as the other two. The room was atitter with activity, tending to a distressed mother and a premature baby, but he stood paralyzed, everything silent except for: _SHE - SHE - SHE - HER. _The words stabbed at him so hard, he had to step out of the room, the palms of his hands barely passing over the heads of Mary and Edith, who were bouncing around impatiently in the hallway, and then instantly tugging at his clothes and demanding, "Well? Well?"

"You have a sister." Edith squealed and Mary scowled (her inital response before she quickly calculated she didn't not want to be the odd one out and claimed the new baby as her own) and he hurried out so his daughters would not see his disgusted and despondent face.

He eventually collected himself enough to go back in, relieved to find that the nurse had taken the baby away. He kissed his wife, told her she had done a good job, and tried to mean it. Her eyes convicted him of his folly: it wasn't her going on and on about _their boy_ all these months. "Is she healthy?" he finally asked in a painfully detached way.

Cora nodded. "She's small, but she seems so." Cora cleared her throat. She didn't want to ask, but she had to; they had never discussed names for a girl. "What should we call her?"

"Whatever you like." He did not add _I don't care_, but they both knew that's what he was thinking.

That night, he couldn't sleep. He walked the rooms of the house, the ghostly moonlight enhancing their magnificence. He had failed Downton, failed his family and his forefathers, failed his children. He had failed his wife by not relieving her of her marital burden and then blaming her for it, after she had given her body, with sweat and pain, to bring his child into the world. And then there was _her_- that deceitful baby who with her swift kicks had duped him into believing he had succeeded. He hadn't even taken a good look at her face.

He heard rustling from the other side of the nursery door and for some reason, he turned the knob. The nurse turned around, surprised, and with all of the dumb innocence of her class, assumed he would want to hold his daughter. And before he knew it, she was thrust into his arms and he was in a chair holding her. She was small- much smaller than Mary and Edith had been- with dark hair and dark lashes and when she opened her eyes, he actually cried for having thought he could never love her. She didn't care about any of that, though. She yawned- how tedious to watch this grown man melt at the sight of his progeny!- and fell promptly to sleep. He handed her back to the nurse and did the same.

The next morning, he went to kiss his wife, relieved to see the baby in her arms, wanted to know _her_ name, and meant it. "Sybil," Cora informed him and said no more, rightfully directing most of her warm feeling towards her newborn and not her spouse. If he had been a better husband during the delivery, he would have remarked on Americans and their ridiculous need for distinction and individualism in all things- "So _we are to have a Mary, an Edith, and a Greek prophetess?"- _but instead he thought back to last night in the nursery and their baby's seemingly unnatural knowledge and responded, "That's a fine name, I think, just fine."

Sweet, because this birthday, like so many before it, almost never happened and by all logic, probably shouldn't have happened, on account of that horrible day sixteen years ago when he had also, for some reason, turned the knob on the nursery door.

He was scheduled to leave for London after breakfast and Mary and Edith, now 9 and 7, had obediently come to say goodbye to him before they started their lessons. His oldest was already a formidable presence- "_9 going on 30_," he and Cora used to joke- who perfectly mimicked the haughty airs of the adults around her. She was whip-smart, a cutting observer and already his favorite conversation partner, but she had abandonned childish things long ago. Edith, the poor dear, had also done so, in a desperate attempt to keep up with her older sister, but no doubt would have been much happier still playing dolls up in the nursery with Sybil.

Then there was Sybil, who was thankfully still very much a child and brought that childlike magic, that wonder and delight in all things, everywhere she went and to everyone she met. He adored his youngest and, as he frequently voiced to her, he never wanted her to grow up. He went to the nursery because Sybil would not, as her sisters had, offer him a restrained hug and hopes for safe travels; she would despair that he was leaving, plead with him not to go, only be pacified after many kisses and promises of postcards and presents.

He expected her to find her buzzing around, as she usually was during the day, but when he came into the nursery, all was quiet and still. Sybil was in her little rocking chair by the window, her back to him, while the old nurse was reorganizing shelves on the other side of the room. She didn't move when he came in. The old nurse called over to him, "She's just in a mood today- she can be very dramatic, she can, milord." He looked skeptically between her and his daughter, knowing intuitively that something was very, very wrong.

"Sybil, come here at once," he ordered. He watched her pull herself out of her chair, with great effort, and wobble over, reaching her arms out to steady herself as she neared him and almost falling into his leg. He could feel the heat from her forehead through his clothes; when he tipped her chin up, her eyes were glassy and dull. "Come on, darling," he said, as he lifted her up. Her head dropped onto his shoulder, as if it were too strenuous to hold it upright. By now, the old nurse had bustled over, fidgeting and vainly claiming that she was all right. "Mrs. Geary," he retorted in a harsh whisper, "my child is quite clearly _not_ all right." He could have killed her. But instead, he barked at her to run a cold bath and yelled down to Carson to fetch Dr. Clarkson at once.

The doctor came and came again, to no avail; he was flummoxed as to the cause and the fever didn't abate. But Mary and Edith must be kept away from the room- absolutely, no exceptions- and Cora must be as well, in case she's pregnant _or plans to become pregnant_, an obvious allusion to the lack of an heir. Robert flinched at that, wondering if this wasn't some kind of delayed, if deserved, punishment. He determined he would stay in the room, stay with his daughter until it was over, whatever that end would be.

The ensuing days were among the worst of his life, but he did not leave- he stayed in that room, slept in that room, watched helplessly as his child was racked with illness that the doctor couldn't cure or even salve. He started reading _The Jungle Book_ to her; she was barely conscious, but it drowned out the sound of his own fear.

On day who-knows, Dr. Clarkson introduced a terrifying new word- _meningitis_- saying he had treated two children who had shown similiar symptoms and that's what they had both had. But the doctor stood there stupidly when Robert asked about the medicine, the cure- "Confound it man, didn't you say you had treated two children with it?"

"Yes," the doctor responded, confused about what Robert has failed to understand. "But they both died. There is no cure."

He dismissed the doctor- "_that bloody idiot_"- and, completely drained and out of options, knelt down beside his little girl, who suddenly opened her eyes like Lazarus and asked, with complete lucidity of incomprehensible origin, "Papa, am I dying?"

"No, darling," he replied, smoothing back her hair. "You're fighting and that is an entirely different thing." Her eyes slipped closed again and he travelled back to that first night of her life. Was this really to be the future for that baby he had held?

A week later, he finished _The Jungle Book_ and she was on the mend. A month later, she was sitting up in bed, talking and laughing and fighting with her sisters and begging to be allowed outside to play. Six months later, he left for his rescheduled trip to London and when he came into the nursery to say goodbye, she ran over and jumped into his arms and cried until he promised to bring back a trunkful of presents. He gave her a kiss, saying that someday, perhaps, they will travel to India and she can go into the jungle and make friends with the animals like Mowgli. "Mowgli?" she said. "Who's that?"

She didn't remember any of it.

Not then and not now, when she came into the dining room and bid him good morning, the start of another day of the strained conversations that now defined their relationship. "Happy birthday, darling."

"Thank you," she smiled, sitting down beside him.

And then he was stuck; he didn't know what to talk to her about anymore, so far removed was she from life at Downton except for her work, so he tried to talk about that. "Working on your birthday? That seems rather a shame."

"The war hasn't stopped for my birthday," she countered, with a testy glance up from her teacup, "so neither has the work."

"Still..." He decided not to finish the thought. These days, they couldn't even have a chat at breakfast without friction. He tried to think of something positive to say. "I am glad you have a day shift. And here at home."

"I was scheduled for a night shift at the hospital last night," she bristled, "but they asked if I would be on call tonight instead."

"Tonight? But what about dinner, your mother will be-"

"I'll still be at dinner, Papa!" she affirmed, exasperated. "I just might have to go in after that."

"Really, Sybil, I don't approve of you running around at all hours of the night. It's patently ridiculous that they can't get a real nurse to do it."

"'_A real nurse_?'" she repeated. "Why thank you, Papa. _Really_." She pushed her chair back in a huff. "If you'll excuse me."

Robert tossed his paper on table, as Sybil stormed out of the room with only one thought on her mind: _Is it over yet? _


	19. Chapter 19: August 1918 Part III

As Sybil Crawley was learning how it felt to say yes, she was also realizing how it felt to say _no_.

And the birthday dinner with her family was proving more than instructive on that front.

* * *

><p>Her mind drifted as the conversation at the table moved pleasantly, if predictably, from course to course. She didn't say much; she was happy to let her parents and Granny play out the script for all the girls' birthdays: Granny says she can't believe [granddaughter] is [age], her father looks over at her mother and says no one would believe she has a child who is [age] years old, her mother pretends to be embarrassed but is obviously pleased, and says she'll never forget this day [age] years ago, one of the three most blessed days of her life, aside from her wedding day.<p>

Then everyone at the table sort of sighs and the history lectures start. There's the nativity story for [daughter]- [x] hours of labor, [daughter's] color of eyes and infant disposition- followed by some charming anecdote of childhood which always puts a faraway look in Carson's eyes, even when it's only about her or Edith, and finally, some modest comment on [daughter] as she is now at [age] years old- which is tonight, as it has been on this day for the past three years, the now-notorious tale of the pants.

This was the fourth time she heard the same retelling of the same story, but it was the first time it bothered her. So much had happened to her in the past four years, so much had changed, she had changed so much- was this still the defining moment for her, as they saw it? Yes, it was funny, it was family folklore, she would never live it down- she had wanted to shock them and she had- but truly, it was a juvenile rebellion of absolutely no consequence at all. So what if she had once worn pants to dinner with her family? Whose life had been improved by that? But to them, this was her paramount achievement in subversion of the social order. Or perhaps it was the ceiling of what they were willing to acknowledge, the rest of her efforts conveniently scrubbed- canvassing for the vote, becoming a nurse, fighting for the convalescent home, even helping Gwen become a secretary, which had at least improved the life of one person.

She wondered if that's what they wanted, a family history for her that would read only: Sybil Crawley, [age] years old, on her way to being married off to some lord and spending the rest of her life idling at some estate, had once dared, when she was just a silly girl, to wear_ pants_ to dinner. They would much prefer to view that episode as a harbinger of being an eccentric aunt, instead of the nascent expression of an interested, political, and opinionated woman, a woman with a worldview fundamentally at odds with the prevailing one at Downton.

She must have been making a face into her plate, because her mother suddenly remarked that it was her favorite meal and wasn't she hungry after working all day?

She had been, but not anymore; she didn't know what had happened to her appetite.

Her father took advantage of the interrupted conversation flow to raise his glass. "A time of war, with so much death, serves to remind us of what we value most in life. I have to look no further than this room, this house, and especially, the faces of my children." His eyes brushed over Matthew. "And tonight," he said, turning his attention to Sybil seated across from him, "we celebrate my youngest, a fine young woman who will no doubt keep Downton on its toes, as she always has, in the years to come." He smiled and tipped his head to her. "Happy birthday, darling."

The table tittered with a chorus of "Hear, hear," but all she heard was the echo of her father's words "_years to come._" Her insides twisted a little with guilt and a lot with realization. When the chocolate flambe came out, her absolutely favorite, she couldn't even finish her portion, which both Edith and Mary teased her about. She looked around the table and saw her lovely family- and she did love them, she did- and was hit with the sudden sensation in her throat and behind her eyes, and she knew she was going to cry. She used to be happy here. Why couldn't she be happy now?

She swallowed her emotion until they went through, when she slipped into the bathroom, her fist pressed to her mouth to muffle the sound, feeling the hot tears track down her cheeks, but not much else. She wasn't sad, per se; it was a cry of release. Of what, exactly, was still murky.

She got it all out in a few minutes, dampened the corner of a towel with cold water and swabbed at her eyes, smoothed back her hair and down her dress skirt, and went to follow her family into the parlor.

"Lady Sybil!" Carson called to her as she rounded the hallway. "Pardon me, my lady, but the hospital has rung. One of the nurses is ill and they've asked for you to come and take her shift tonight."

It was a wonderful, unexpected gift, as it meant this evening- this _day_- will be ending for her in less than an hour. "Oh, that's not a problem at all, Carson. If you wouldn't mind ringing them back and telling them so." It also meant... "And please tell Branson I'll need him to drive me. But Carson," she added, ideas for the garage already hatching in her mind, "he doesn't have to come up to the house. Just tell him I'll come down to the yard when I'm ready."

"Very well, my lady." He paused, then said, "And permit me to wish you a very happy birthday, on behalf of myself and the staff."

"Why thank you, Carson," she smiled.

"It does seem like yesterday when Lady Mary was toting you around this house and insisting that she be hired on to care for you, since none of the nursemaids cared for you nearly as well as she," he sniffed, as only the little Lady Mary Crawley could have.

Sybil laughed at Carson's spot-on imitation of her sister. "I think she just wanted to get out of her French lessons."

"That may be true, but she loved you fiercely from the start. I think you may have been her first love." Carson had a fleeting thought- S_he certainly loved her baby Sybil more than she will ever love that Sir Richard Carlisle- _but continued, "I will never forget the two of you coming to see me downstairs- she no higher than my waist, both arms full of you, and you not even talking yet- but when she smiled at you, you gave the biggest baby grin I've ever seen. Ah, the sight of those two little girls was enough to melt the heart of even the most prickly and proper butler!"

"I'll grant you proper," Sybil teased lightly, moved by how moved he was by the recollection. "I think you're a proper softie, Carson."

"Well," Carson harrumphed, mildly embarrassed. "I thank my lady for her brief indulgence of sentimentalism. Now, if you'll excuse me, I will go find Mr. Branson and alert him to your impending departure."

The remembrance of she and Mary as children running around the house might have induced another swell of emotion if she were not so consumed with anticipation, for she was going to get to see Branson tonight.

Sybil found her family in the drawing room as they always were in her mind- her father with an arm draped over the mantle, Edith beside their mother on the sofa albeit slightly too far away to seem comfortable, Mary conspiratorially close to Matthew, Granny and cousin Isobel presiding over the whole affair on the love seat- speaking amongst themselves.

But she knew she had to remember, in these moments when she felt torn about the decision that had become a _fait accompli_, is that this would all be changing. She would not be here, with her parents and her sisters and Isobel, Matthew and Granny in the years to come; Richard Carlisle would be here next year or perhaps he and Mary would be absent. Matthew and Lavinia would be off somewhere, married. And as Branson had correctly (if cruelly) put it, in the years to come, if she were to stay here for the years to come, she herself would be married off to someone too.

That thought made her skin itch. She surveyed the parlor and saw it metastasize from the warm family hearth before her to the marital pawnshop it was before the war. Her clothes suddenly felt unbearably uncomfortable.

She was truly glad to see Isobel rise and come over to her. "I thought your father gave a lovely speech."

"Yes, it was very nice."

"His point, pithily made, was quite correct. In war, in dark times, we must remember to take our joy where we can find it. We musn't feel guilty about it because it gives us the strength to face the future."

Sybil swirled her drink around in its glass and gave Isobel a wan smile. "You tried to tell me as much when I threw a tantrum about Mama's soirees at the hospital."

"Ah, yes," Isobel recalled. "It was understandable. Your first few months at the hospital, you were eager to do well and you were understandably on guard against being pulled back in to your life here."

"How do you mean?" It came out a little defensive, though she wasn't sure why.

"Oh, I think your becoming a nurse was as much about helping yourself as it was about helping the wounded. That's to take nothing away from it," Isobel reassured. "But you always had a sense, ever since I've known you at least, that you have something to contribute to the world and more importantly, you have a desire to contribute. Becoming a nurse proved you also have the independence to do it. Proved it to yourself, I mean. I didn't have any doubt."

Sybil glowed at the compliment and Isobel felt a familiar surge of affection for her. Matthew was a dream, she could not have been prouder of the son she had raised and the man he'd become, but she would have been equally proud if she had a daughter such as Sybil. And if Sybil had been _her_ daughter- well, there would have been no limits: school, then university, then on to becoming a doctor or a solicitor or a member of Parliament or whatever she liked. That this bright and interested girl had had so much of her youth wasted, languishing in a parlor, was a travesty. Isobel had often said as much privately to Matthew, who rightly reminded her to keep her opinion on that subject to herself. Still, she couldn't help herself. "You've come so far since then. I do hope you don't fall back."

"How would I do that?"

"My dear, I think there are many choices in this world and I don't presume to tell you which ones to make. What's important is _how_ you live what you choose," Isobel posited. "Will you wake up and embrace each day? Or will you shy from it and hope it ends quickly, so you can go to sleep and dream of the life that might have been?" Sybil followed as Isobel's gaze slipped to Mary and Matthew and she was slightly startled to see her grandmother's hawkish eyes trained on her. "You've got a good heart and a good head on your shoulders. Trust them," Isobel advised. "They'll not lead you wrong."

The words had barely escaped Isobel's mouth when Violet bustled over. "I do hope I'm not interrupting," she interrupted. Isobel squeezed Sybil's arm and excused herself. Sybil turned to her grandmother who frowned and remarked, "It's a shame, really."

"What is?"

"Your twenty-first birthday and no men around," Violet said with a dismissive wave of her hand, "just family and middle-class widows."

"Oh, Granny. You know I'm perfectly happy to spend my birthday with all of you," Sybil parried.

"That would make you exceedingly odd among women your age," her grandmother reproached her. Sybil didn't know what to say to that, so she took a sip of her drink. "I know the war has been difficult on your generation. But it should be over soon enough."

"We hope and pray."

"And life can return to normal. Which means," Violet said with a determined glimmer in her eye, "we must plan for your future."

Sybil stole a look at the clock; thankfully, it was almost time to make an exit. "Granny, really-"

"You're not getting any younger, dear. But for the war, you'd probably be married by now."

"Mary's not even married yet!" Sybil scoffed. "And what about Edith? It's her turn next, I doubt she'd like very much you skipping over her for me."

"You could help Edith," Violet persisted, with a nervous glance in Edith's direction, hoping not to burn her ears. "Mary's suitors always came with a few spares in tow."

"Granny, it won't be like that anymore. The days of weekend hunts are over. Besides, there's barely a man my age left in England."

"Perhaps not your age..." Violet deflected. "But do you remember Lord Aster? He asks after you always."

"Who?"

"Lord Aster from-"

"I have absolutely no idea who he is," Sybil cut her off, exasperated by the entire discussion.

"You met at your ball."

"Granny, that was five years ago!"

"He is a widower and his only son was killed in the Somme."

"That's truly terrible and I'm sorry for his loss," Sybil responded with trepidation. _Surely Granny didn't intend..._ "Forgive me for saying so, but he had a son old enough to fight and he remembers me from a dance when I was sixteen?"

"You made quite an impression," Violet informed her with a sly expression. "And he's only forty- he married young."

"_Only_-?" Sybil exclaimed.

Violet pushed past her protestations and stated her case. "He's very well off and- you will like this- his friends say he's a liberal. In private, of course. He'd never vote for one. But he's very interested in lost causes, as you are. He's quite impressed with how you've volunteered as a nurse."

"How does he- I don't even _know_ him!"

"I wouldn't be so uncharitable, dear, there are many men who would not approve of their future wife-"

"I'm not looking for anyone's approval!"

"You should not be so dismissive! You'd be lucky to be matched with someone with whom you had one or two things in common. That's more than your father and mother had when they married."

"Granny, please!" She said it so loud that her parents ceased their conversation and turned to look at her. "It's been a wonderful evening. Thank you for the birthday wishes, but I must say goodnight. The hospital's rung and they need me to come in."

As she crossed the room to leave, Sybil overheard her mother scold her grandmother, "I told you not to push!" _So she was in on this Lord Aster business as well._

"We must face facts. Sybil is of marriageable age, the war is coming to an end, and when it does, there will be a severe deficit of suitable husbands. She should be glad of any inquiry," Violet declared, unfazed by Sybil's reaction. "Frankly, I blame you. You coddled them too much as children; it makes them expect comfort. When they are left to cry, they quickly realize tears are futile."


	20. Chapter 20: August 1918 Part IV

_Thanks as always for the reviews and especially all the insightful comments about Robert/Sybil. One of the most gratifying things about this story is getting to hear different views on the show- it definitely enhances my viewing experience. _

_This sequence grew like a weed, but the last part and this one are really just one and should be read together, so here's the rest of it. _

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><p>Sybil was still rattled by the conversation with Granny when Anna came in to help her fix her hair and get out of her dress. She stopped the maid after she removed the nursing uniform from the armoire. "I can do it," she said, taking the hanger from her. "Thank you, Anna." Anna nodded and left.<p>

Sybil tossed her uniform on the bed. She wanted to ready quickly- for it meant more time alone before she had to actually be at work- but she needed a few minutes to dispatch the nebulous anxieties that were bubbling up inside her. _You have a choice_, she told herself. _No one can make you do anything_. And if they tried... She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. _They better not try_.

She couldn't quite wrap her head around running away with him: where would they go? Ireland, she supposed, at least at first. But what would they do? How would they live? There were so many unanswered questions, too many possibilities to work out. But by God, she could absolutely envision another choice, one she could and would gladly embrace. They thought the _pants_ were a shock. _Just let them try it._ _I swear it, I will march down to that cottage and do everything I've been thinking about and then we'll see how liberal-minded that old lord is, how approving he is_, when she tells the whole parlor how she's been spending her nights making love to the chauffeur. _We'll see how impressed he is with me then_._ Oh and Granny, I assure you, I am exceedingly normal for a woman my age_.

She couldn't help but giggle at the thought of their faces; and poor Lord Whomever, she almost felt sorry for him- he was probably nice, certainly grief-stricken- even though she hated the thought that a man more suited to be friends with her father was entertaining ideas of making her his wife. But she could stop it, she had the power to stop it. _"Should your family's happiness come at the cost of your own_?" No, she could finally say. No, it should not. She hadn't answered then because she had never been forced to confront the reality of_ living_ that unhappiness. Mary was much stronger than she was, how she suffered Sir Richard, how much more she would have to grin and bear once they were married. It made her feel faint to think of it, a life of relentless, unceasing pretending. Boredom was one thing; suffocation of self quite another. _I think that would kill me. I honestly don't think I could live_.

She fell back on the bed. _I won't. I won't. _

_He won't let me_.

She didn't need to take the thought further. She knew it was true. But she wanted to choose her choice, not be forced into it by her family and certainly not by some stranger. He didn't deserve to have that as a reward for his devotion. Neither did she. Now that she was sure she was in love, she wanted to live it (as much as they could while still here). But she wanted to _feel_ it, to let it unfold, let it surprise her as it had done since that fateful touch. Just a few months ago, she had come back to this very room with so many questions and no answers. The answers to those early questions had revealed themselves- sometimes she thought they were revealing themselves faster than she could keep up- and she had no doubt the answers to the outstanding ones would, in time, do so as well.

For now though, she had to get dressed and get down to the garage because he was waiting for her.

She hurried down to the yard, feeling acute joy in the fact that she could hurry, having shed her constricting clothes. By the time she reached the garage, she was almost skipping. "Hello!" she burst in.

He was leaning against the car and paging through the newspaper, which he set aside as she entered. "Hello yourself."

"Thanks for driving me. I know it's very late."

"Everything alright?"

"Yes, a nurse is sick is all."

He looked her up-and-down; she was a little out of breath, flushed but happy. "Well. I'd say twenty-one agrees with you."

"I hope it does," she replied suggestively, more than willing to encourage any ideas he may be entertaining. "Nice of you to notice."

He laughed the allusion. "And your birthday- how was it?"

"It was- fine," she said rather shortly, coming over to him under the pretext of wanting to look at the newspaper he had abandoned on the hood. "The best part is, it will be a full year before I have to be the focus of a family dinner again." She regretted her phrasing as soon as the words came out, but he didn't wince at all; she noted it with unease. "I am glad the hospital called, though. It was a good excuse to leave." He smiled. "To come here. To see you," she elaborated. "Before the day is over."

"I'm glad of it as well." They were very close, separated only by the front corner of the car. She saw him working out what to say- or maybe even what to do- but he finally decided on the simple and customary, "Happy birthday."

She really wished he had dared to lean over and kiss her cheek, but alas. "Thank you," she accepted, not without disappointment.

"Shall we?"

She nodded and walked around him, the swing of her skirt brushing against his calves, and waited beside the car for him to open the door. He thought that odd- she never did that anymore, not for a long time now, when they were alone. He opened it, conspicuously cursorily, but she remained in place. Only when he offered his hand did she spring to life, taking it and holding it in hers, smiling and stepping into the car. He tried to let go, but she didn't, hoping to capture his gaze in her own. But his eyes were shifty; he looked deeply uncomfortable. Confused and dismayed, she let her fingers slip from his, to what appeared to be his great relief. Her uneasiness grew exponentially.

She watched him quizzically for the short ride, as they wound through the dark and deserted roads, flanked by the fullness of trees that would soon start losing their leaves. "You're very quiet," she observed.

"Just tired, I guess," he replied, hoping he sounded nonchalant. "You worked all day and had a birthday party. Won't you be tired at work?"

"Probably. But the nightshifts have been quiet lately." She had initiated the conversation, she'd hoped he'd jump in and contribute, but he did not. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong," he lied. There were lights in the distance; they were coming up on the hospital.

_Something is definitely wrong. _Not just with him, but with them. "Well, you don't seem very happy."

He turned the motor into the back entrance, pulled on the handbrake, half-turned to her and said, with his standard disarming sincerity, "How could I be anything but glad on the day you were born?" before escaping out of the car.

It did not please her to hear it; something in the cadence of his words underscored her sense of dread. He came around, opened the door. She stubbornly stayed seated. "It feels like you're thinking things you're not saying."

He looked pained, his hand impudently parked on the door. Finally, he reached out to her. She took his hand and held it, didn't bother to pretend there was any other intention. "Tell me, please?" she implored. He looked down, brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. She gripped tighter. He could feel her eyes searching his face. Wouldn't it figure, she starts getting bolder as soon as he decides to... How can he possibly tell her, on today of all days and right now, when she's holding his hand. _Oh God, it was August then too. That day... that night... Ah, Mrs. Hughes, if you could only know how right you were..._

_He's going to kiss me._ _It's going to happen, right now_. Her heart trembled, but she was ready, fully aware that whatever happened next might very well make her choice for her. "Please?" she whispered.

He had to say it, but he can't say it; the words poured out anyway. Thank God his possession led him to start speaking in tongues.

She couldn't take her eyes off of him and all of a sudden, her ears were full of the sound of her own pounding heart and strange syllables which she could only assume was the Irish language. How easily and fluidly it came, how beautiful it was to see another dimension of this person. The language of his ancestors, his homeland, his childhood, the very full and rich life he had lived, belied by England-imposed epitaph of "the chauffeur."_ Had his mother spoken like this to him when he was young_? Oh, no. She did not need to a translator for this- she might not know what he said, but she could see full well what he meant. This was definitely not a communication between a parent and a child. She had to remind herself to breathe.

"What was that?" she asked breathlessly when he paused, running his free hand over his face, looking as dazed as she felt.

"Gaelic." It had been years since he'd uttered a word of it; he had surprised himself. He couldn't believe the things he had just said. In fact, some of them he now wondered where he had ever learned such phrases.

"Yes, but what did you say?"

She was still holding onto his hand. "You wanted me to tell you my unspoken thoughts," he answered, "so I did." She never loosened her hold on him, always drawing him to do the exact opposite of what he intended, which tonight was simply to remain silent until she went to work. Instead, he was standing in the hospital parking lot, stroking her fingers and confessing, "Some part of it was 'I love you.'"

"Which part?" She pressed her hand further into his and somehow, at neither or both of their instigations, their fingers laced together.

"_Tá grá agam duit_."

"Say it again."

He did. _Tah-grah, ah-grum-ditch_. She repeated it slowly, each syllable carefully pronounced. He shook his head a little. "It's faster and a little lighter. Just let it fall out."

"_Tá grá agam duit_."

"That's very good. It's the poshest Gaelic I've ever heard," he chuckled softly, "but it's good. And in your voice..." He looked at their bound hands, suspended over her lap. "Say it again?" She did. He closed his eyes, then opened them. "There. Etched in my memory. I'll carry it with me always."

_S_he wanted to know why memory, but was too afraid to ask. She clasped harder; how easily and fluidly that had come too. "What about the rest?"

"The rest I shouldn't even be thinking, let alone saying. Let alone saying here in the dark to you," he amended. He looked upward and gave the stars a rueful smile. "It's kind of a perfect solution for us, no? I can tell you anything and you'll never have to hear a word of it."

She pulled their hands closer to her and in doing so, pulled his eyes down to hers. "Do you think that's what I want?"

He really seemed to consider it, seemed to _have_ to consider it; her actions, her lack of action, made him have to consider it. "I don't honestly know," he finally responded. _Find out, then. Just come find out. _He stared into her eyes, where she was channeling this thought, until they slipped closed of their own volition, every fiber of her quivering with expectation. _It's going to happen, right now, he's going to_...

But he didn't. Without moving, he recoiled from her.

She lifted her eyelids. _So this is how it feels to be turned down_. It stung. A lot. But she would try to brave about it; she owed him that much, at least, after the last two years. "You wanted to kiss me that day in the garage, when you-" She didn't have to say it, they both knew exactly what she was referring to. "You would have, if I had."

"Yes," he admitted. "And not just then." He wrested his hand loose, put it in his pocket, as he had that day.

"But not now. You don't want to now." She summoned all her courage. "Why?"

"It must be midnight," he evaded, nodding towards the hospital door. "You don't want to be late."

"Why?" she probed, almost desperate.

He shook his head. "Another time."

"I want you to tell me now."

"I don't want to say it today, on your birthday."

"Do you- I mean..." She could barely choke out the words. "Someone else?"

Tellingly, her first thought was not that he was leaving, her perennial fear since the failed proposal in York, it was that he had fallen out of love with her or in love with someone else. If she had thought about it, the fact that she no longer feared his leaving would have confirmed that she had already decided to go with him. But the prospect she had been living with for the past, oh, five seconds or so- the prospect that all this was lost to her and she would never have it or that _someone else_ would have it-was intolerable.

_Someone else? Oh Sybil. _It would be comical, if she didn't so clearly mean it_. _"There's no one else," he said, quiet but adamant. "There is no one else. I doubt there could ever be anyone else," he smiled sadly.

"Please just tell me." She wished they were still holding hands. "Besides, it's past midnight, my birthday's over."

He capitulated. "I've decided to go back to Ireland. I'll tell you more about why another time." He had dreaded this conversation, but he had hated keeping this secret from her and felt relieved to have it out in the open. "I have to. And- I want to. I want to go." She was looking at her hands, so he couldn't read her reaction; how very characteristic of her. "I'm not leaving next week or even next month, but soon."

"How soon?" Her voice was steadier than either of them expected, but still she did not look at him.

"By year's end."

"So four months?"

He nodded slightly. "At most."

"When did you decide this?"

"It's been five years," he sighed. "Two since I asked you. It's time. If you love me, if you can make this choice and bear its cost, I swear I'll do everything I can to make you happy. But if you don't, or you can't, I want you to be happy- at Downton or somewhere else, with someone else." He had planned to say that because it was the right and honorable thing to say; only as the words passed his lips did he discover that he meant it. "I want you to be loved, to be in love. Even if it's not with me."

At that, she looked straight ahead, below his sight line and past him, still showing no emotion. "I have to go."

"Yes." There was an awkward adjudication as he wondered if he should offer his hand, complete the charade, but decided against it, given how the circumstances had changed in these final moments. She slid out and passed him as quickly as possible. _Not even a goodnight then. _He hadn't expected any better reaction, but that didn't mean it wasn't breaking his heart all the same. He climbed back in the cab and was releasing the brake, when she called back to him from midway up the cobblestone path.

"Tom- I do. I don't know if I can, but I do."

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><p><em>Note: I don't speak Gaelic, I just went by what the Google told me. If anyone knows better, please advise!<em>


	21. Chapter 21: Fall 1918

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! __And thank you to mygirl1987 for the notes on the Irish language- I really appreciate it! It's Gaeilge from here on out._

_Just one quick note: The timeline in the show makes no sense to me, so I'm using my own dates for 2x07/2x08. _

_Next stop, Scotland ;)_

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><p>"<em>I do<em>."

"_I do_."

_She does_? She does.

Holy hell.

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><p>Sybil checked in at the hospital, with apologies for being a few minutes late, and spent the next two hours making rounds and tending to needs of the soldiers dropping off to sleep. By two-thirty, all was quiet and she took a seat the podium desk towards the door to the main room. Normally, the night nurse was tasked with trying to work through the mound of paperwork that piled up during the days when there wasn't a minute to spare- patient folders, medical records, reports to and from military headquarters, inventory, letters begging for more medicine, supplies, and manpower. Tonight, though, there was little in the inbox. The inventory was up to date, with morphine and iodine still in stock (that was something she hadn't seen since she started working). It was just as well; she couldn't focus on anything except four months.<p>

_Four months_. _At most._

Would all this really be decided by Christmas? Could she really imagine waking up Christmas morning in another country? In a flat in a city, in Dublin? She didn't know anything about Dublin, this place that could soon be her home. Maybe it wouldn't be a flat in the city, but a little house outside, maybe even by the sea. But then, what if Tom can't find work and she has no dowry and no one will hire her because she's not a real nurse and English aristocracy to boot. It's too much to think about.

Someone groaned from across the room. She snapped back to the present and made an easy decision: _I need to be here for as long as I'm here_.

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><p>He knew in his heart that it was true; he had known for some time. But he was never sure that she would admit it. And as the months- <em>years<em>- dragged on, he had started to doubt: maybe there was an affection, an attraction, love even, but he was just the chauffeur and she would have to be utterly, completely mad to surrender all she had been born into for him. But those doubts were no match for the echoes of that night:

"_Tá grá agam duit_."

_"I do."_

But days went by, then a week, then another week. No visits. She had completely vanished. Had she changed her mind? Maybe she had just gotten caught up in the moment and in the sober light of day realized she had made a huge mistake. Or had she intended it as a kiss off? A way to break the fall, a kind of consolation prize for two years of unrequited love that was destined to remain unrequited?

She did have the most empathetic heart and an affinity to impossible causes; it was one of the things he loved best about her.

* * *

><p><strong>September 1918<strong>

Then one afternoon she appeared, out of the blue, making small talk about engines, as if no time had passed at all. She became defiant when he commented on her rather conspicuous absence, argued with his assumption, and he was surprised to see a new sense of self- of surety- in her voice, her posture, the way she stepped towards him, up to him, even when he tried to stepped away.

"Just a few more weeks... So will you wait?"

He had never been happier to be wrong in his whole life.

She couldn't stay, she had to get back to work. But she did tell him, as she was leaving, that it's hard to think about Ireland; she's never even seen a photograph.

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><p><strong>November 1918 <strong>

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year, the Great War limped to a finish. The papers that week showed photos of civilian celebrations in the streets of London, in Paris, in New York; for the first time in his adult life, he had no desire to read them. Sybil picked up the discarded Tuesday edition off the workbench and stared at the front page for a long minute. "Champagne," she commented with disgust. "Good God." She thew it back down.

He recalled a conversation between them in January, when he had very excitedly relayed that none other than President Woodrow Wilson was calling on the American Congress to approve suffrage for women and what an ally to have in the cause, and she had somewhat mildly shrugged it off, invoking that old canard about unity in a time of war. "Let me ask you something," he had challenged her at the time. "Do you think, if women had the vote, we would be in this war?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If all the mothers and grandmothers, all the wives and fiancees and sweethearts and nurses, if they all had a say, if every politician's future employment depended on them, would we be in this war?"

"Your point, please."

"My point is that, in my opinion, we most certainly would not. And whenever someone says put we have to put politics aside for the good of the country, it probably means for the good of the people in power. Because it's only ever the people in power who say that."

She contemplated it for a moment before responding sharply, though without judgment, "It's possible. But who's seen more of this war, you or me?"

That had shut him up. He still believed in the truth of his proposition, but he suspected both their viewpoints had evolved somewhat out of that exchange.

That was the first of many old memories that sneaked up on him in the weeks he waited for her answer. Some prescient part of his brain had already begun packing up his past at Downton and reorganizing his memories involving Sybil from a work story to a love story; embedded in all the discrete, secret experiences they had accumulated in the past few years were lessons they would need to know to be good partners and friends and lovers to each other in the future.

Time became even more fluid after the end of the war. He got caught in another memory after breakfast, when Mr. Carson came to hand out the post.

"Mr. Branson, there's a letter for you." Mr. Carson passed it across the table and in front of the wandering eyes of the terrible two.

"Russia?" O'Brien announced to the table. "And just who do _you_ know in Russia?"

"You working for the Bolsheviks?" Thomas chimed in. "Some kind of dirty spy? I might have guessed." He was even more bitter after the war, if that were possible, Branson thought.

He rolled his eyes and collected his letter and newspaper. Jane, who was seated next to him, exclaimed, "They've the same name!" She moved her index finger between the return address on the envelope and the byline of the front-page story about the teetering Russian All-Provisional Government. "Boggs and Boggs." Branson nudged her toward the connection with a look. "Oh!" she understood. "Gosh, a letter from a newspaper writer. And addressed to you personally!"

"A man of the world we are now, are we?" O'Brien glowered, as Branson got up to leave. "If that's true, what on earth are you doing here then?"

He answered her with a smile. That, he had to admit, was a very good question indeed.

The second letter from Boggs was short and succinct and included the name and address of a former university chum who was now a deputy editor at the second-largest paper in Dublin, seeing as Tom Branson was Irish and, evinced by his letters, full of thoughts on the revolution now gripping his own country. "Send some samples to him, I've written ahead and told him to expect a letter from you." If Boggs had any trepidation about him being in service and lacking a university education, he didn't say so. Tom scribbled a note of profuse thanks in reply (although he still didn't believe it would amount to anything) and set to work on a new round of sample clippings.

He found it hard to concentrate, not usually a problem he had. But as he thought about Ireland, he kept flashing back to his first weeks in England, when he was looking for employment, living in a boarding house with a bunch of other immigrants and British nomads, and he had come back one night talking of a promising interview he had had with a Lord Grantham that afternoon.

The acquaintance, who was Welsh and whose name escaped him now, took a long drag of his cigarette and asked, "So he's got three daughters of age?"

"Yep."

"They pretty?"

"The one I saw was." _Lady Mary_, _the eldest. _"But they all look rather fine from the pictures on the table."

The Welshman burst out laughing. "Why in the hell would a Lord hire a young Irish rogue like you to drive around his pretty daughters?"

"You're right," he conceded with a chuckle. "He probably won't."

The next day he learned he had gotten the job.

What if he hadn't? Where would his life be now?

He couldn't begin to imagine. Which must mean it was never supposed to be any other way, he thought with a smile. He picked up his pen, ready now to write about Ireland, if not quite yet about its politics.

* * *

><p>A few nights later, for the first time since the end of the war, she was able to visit after dinner.<p>

They had taken all those late-night bull sessions in the garage for granted; "work" was the world's broadest and most effective alibi for anyone at the house who wanted to know where she was going to or coming from, she just lied her way around it and for two years, no one (well, except for Lady Mary) was the wiser.

The end of the work meant the end of the alibi. He resigned himself to evenings actually spent tinkering with the car until he was called to drive the Dowager Countess home; usually, by the time he returned, the light in Sybil's room was on, and he knew he could head back to his cottage because she wouldn't be coming by tonight. Neither of them was taking well to the forced separation; the slight nods of acknowledgement and barely-there smiles when they passed each other around the estate were downright excruciating. It was actually worse to see each other than not.

After two weeks, she had had enough apparently; he heard her footsteps on the gravel outside as he was changing the oil and smiled- _sneaky_!- wondering how she had managed to engineer a visit tonight. He turned round from the motor and _whoa_.

The end of the work also meant the end of the shapeless, gray uniform and its equally unflattering cap and while he admired all it stood for, he couldn't deny that his stomach was on the floor as she stepped into the garage in one of those outfits from the old days, with the bows and the baubles and all that. She seemed sort of embarrassed to be dressed so fancy, but pleased to see him admiring her. It struck him how completely that had changed from years ago.

She quickly explained that the clothes were old, she had to wear them out, seeming to want to assure him she hadn't reverted to dress fittings and frivolity. She wanted to know where he had been all day. She said it so urgently that he wondered if she had made up her mind. Ah, of course not; he was just being frightfully full of himself, as usual.

But then, to his surprise, she reached up and touched his cheek and looked into his eyes for a long while. When her hand dropped softly, he caught it in his. "I have something for you," he said, leading her over to the table, where he retrieved a brown leather-bound notebook, which he handed to her.

"What's this?"

"You said you've never seen a picture of Ireland. I don't have any photographs, and I've no artistic talent, but I wrote down what I remember. Maybe it will be helpful." She started to open it, but his hand closed over hers. "It's late," he cautioned.

"I know," she sighed. "I should probably be getting back. Except I don't want to."

She lingered there for a moment. "You have what I wrote you," he encouraged. "It'll almost be like I'm there."

Now, it was her turn to give him a once-over. "Oh, no it won't," she said in a way that left no question as to the difference and left.

* * *

><p>Back in her room, in bed, she opened the notebook and started to read:<p>

"_The first thing you see on the boat ride west is not Dublin, but the peninsula of Howth- all mossy crags and rust-colored rock, cliffs tumbling into the sea. You can climb them (it's a short trip from Dublin proper) and when you stand atop them, surrounded by nothing but clouds, you feel higher and freer than you ever thought possible, completely alone in the world, which should be terrifying except it's strangely not.._."

In neat, even script, on page after page, he walked her with words through his country, from the docks where the boat from Liverpool would arrive, through the neighborhoods where a nice young couple might inquire about a flat and where the hospitals were located, into the shops on the thoroughfare (noting, without comment, that two of them were bridal shops), along the grass at St. Stephen's Green and the banks of the river. Vivid recollections of wet stone streets and afternoon sunlight cutting through clouds, of seals that lapped on the shore, and eccentric characters from his childhood, priests (lots of priests) and older folks who ran pubs and curiosity shops, of making the trek west to see the cliffs that held off the Atlantic Ocean.

It was well into the next day before she fell asleep, halfway through, somewhere between here and there.

_Four months_. _At most_.

She could hardly wait.


	22. Chapter 22: To Scotland, 1918 Part I

_Very important author's note! This chapter was updated with significant content changes on 3/30. For more on why, see the author's note in chapter 24._

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><p>When Sybil was a child, Edith (resentful of her bond with Mary) had often tried to frighten her, to make her cry, to show she was a baby. But nothing worked; nothing seemed to scare her at all.<p>

_"What about a hungry wolf who wanted to eat you?"_

_"I'd give him a biscuit and then he wouldn't be hungry."_

_"What about a wretched old witch who wanted to turn you into a toad?"_

_"I'd tell her she was pretty- she wouldn't turn someone who was nice to her into a toad."_

_"What about a ghost who wanted to haunt you at night?"_

_"Oh, I would ask him to teach me all of his tricks!"_

She often thought she would like to be a ghost because then she could walk through walls and see everything and no one could see her. She thought of that tonight as her family filed into the drawing room, chattering excitedly about weddings and the future, and she simply kept walking, into the hall, right past the stairs and straight out the front door, not caring if anyone saw, weddings and the future on her mind as well.

She faltered a little before the doorway, a threshold she had crossed thousands of times in recent years but which now assumed an entirely more symbolic nature, twisting her shoe a little in the gravel, trying in vain to stay her furious heart. She had never considered, but now perfectly understood, what he must have felt when they arrived in York. Of the millions of minutes lived in a human life, there are remarkably few where a destiny is made, is decided. This was one of her moments. He looked up from the newspaper, smiled an easy smile at her. He didn't know that. _Yet_.

* * *

><p>They kissed and it was at once everything they had each expected and nothing either had ever imagined, both entirely surprising and completely familiar, paradoxically known and unknown, like a deja vu; it was, quite simply, perfect.<p>

* * *

><p>When they broke for breath, her eyes shining and her hands still holding his shoulders a little awkwardly, she confessed, "I'm so happy. I thought I would be nervous or even a little scared, to say it out loud, but I'm not. I'm just <em>happy<em>." He was completely floored, unable to think with the turn his life had taken in the last few minutes, so he just cupped her face and kissed her again and again, each one slaying a store of apprehension and doubt.

Finally she pulled back, her arms now wound around his neck, asking euphorically, "What do we do now?"

He chuckled at the absurdity of being caught unaware by the most obvious follow-up question. "I have no idea." Truly, there was at present not one single rational thought in his head.

"You must have some idea," she argued, folding her fingers into the threads of his hair, "after all this time I've made you wait!"

"Well, I think we'll go to Ireland, right?"

"Yes, of course. I can't wait," she affirmed. "It's marvelous- from what I've read," she added quickly, with a look that was both bashful and grateful. "But when? How?"

"You sound like you want to go tonight!" he laughed, clutching her tighter. It occurred to him that this was probably not how a gentleman would hold his lady, but it was the only way he knew how. And she fit so well, flush with him, it seemed a shame not to.

"Would you want to?" she asked, eyes wide.

"I don't think we're quite ready yet. But I have some things at my cottage, schedules and maps and oh, did I tell you that I got a lead on a paper in Dublin? That's at the cottage as well."

"What are we waiting for?" she cried, dropping her arms- bringing an end to that first hard-won embrace- and taking hold of his hands. "Let's go!"

"It's really very late," he reminded her reluctantly. "They'll be looking for you."

"So what if they are? For that matter, so what if they find me? They'll find out soon enough anyway," she determined, both unable and unwilling to temper the excitement coursing through her. _A new life_. It had begun, it was already happening, and the future was calling. "Come on!" she said, nearly dragging him out the door.

"Wait."

She turned, pink-cheeked and radiant, in the door frame and as she did so, her earrings caught the lamplight, illuminating the jewels, making the gold glow, and he was thunderstruck with the reminder of who she was and how implausible- _impossible- _this night, her answer, was. And yet. _And yet_. "What is it?" she asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"Nothing," he assured her, bringing a hand about her hip. "It's just that I've wanted to do this for so long." And then he _kissed_ her, not sweetly effervescent like before, but_ really_ kissed her, with sounds and sighs, hard enough that she could feel the back of her dress abrading the splintering wood and yet, her fingers around his waist were urging him closer and when they breathed it was each other's breath they were taking.

She was understandably speechless afterward and he said nothing, just reclaimed her hand with a little coy smile of promise, and led her down the path to his cottage. "There's an extra key under that rock," he informed her, nodding at an inconspicuous stone near the stoop, "should you ever need." He turned his own key and opened the door, allowing her entrance for the first time.

She stepped into the small front room and surveyed it. The kitchen and living area were together about the size of her bedroom, the furniture was functional and old, but it was kempt and orderly and had a dignity to it. "This is where you live?" she voiced without judgment.

"Yes," he answered, unexpectedly self-conscious at having her in his quarters for the first time. "Sorry it's a bit of a mess."

"On the contrary, it's quite clean," she smiled then added, "for a bachelor."

"Well, I wasn't expecting anyone. No one ever comes here."

"No one?" she repeated lightly.

He could never quite believe she had ever feared he might not wait for her. "No one." She stopped, looked at him directly from where she was standing in the living area, where the light from the kitchen didn't quite reach. Something passed between them in that look, he could see it even in the duskiness, like she was expressing that she understood how he had committed, had sacrificed, as well.

She turned towards the door to the bedroom, which was halfway open. "May I?"

"Of course."

She went through and he followed, his stomach starting to twist. He had always thought this room comfortable, but as he watched Sybil move through it, he saw ugliness he had never noticed before: the water stain that marred the wall below where the roof had leaked, the slope of the floor from being built on uneven ground, how cramped it was, even though he owned almost nothing. None of that had bothered him (truth be told, he liked it; perfection, if the old adage is to be believed, is synonymous with artifice) until it appeared in stark contrast to such perfection: Sybil with her perfectly-curled hair, her perfectly-fit clothes, her perfect grace as she navigated the crowded space.

He knew this wasn't poverty, not by any stretch, but how much poverty this must look like to her. He imagined her imagining herself living in a two-room shack like this, thinking she was not just looking inside his life, but into a life that would be hers as well, and he felt an emotion that was so foreign to him it took him a minute to realize it was shame.

Just then, standing by one of the piles of books, she rendered her verdict. "I like it," she announced. "It suits you."

He had no idea what she meant by _that_, so he just said, "Bedrooms are personal. You can tell a lot about people from their bedrooms."

"Not my bedroom," she retorted, surprisingly caustic, as she perused the titles. While he couldn't see past the shabbiness of the room, all she could see were all the things _of_ _interest_ in it. "Mine is pleasant. Everything in its place, no personality, no passions whatsoever. Exactly the way they want it." She turned suddenly, as if she only just realized where he was. "You don't have to stand in the doorway," she chided laughingly. "It's _your_ room."

"I know, but..."_ it's my room_.

She waved off his concern, continued her appraisal. He winced a bit to see he had left a dirty whiskey glass on the night table and hoped she didn't notice; not only did she notice, she picked it up, curiously seemed to delight in it. "I should like to have books and things like this," she told him. "Not just in cases or cupboards, but on the floor and by the bed and wherever you want to leave them."

She was beside the bed now and he realized she had no place to sit . "Argh, sorry. Hold on," he said, acutely aware that he was fumbling more now in this room, at twenty-eight years of age, than he ever had as a schoolboy. "I'll get you a chair."

"I can sit here." She stopped him, perching on the side of the barely-made bed, and smoothed the blanket with the palm of her hand. Something about the gesture made his breath catch. "You can sit too."

He hung back. "I don't know that we should-"

"Don't be silly," she interrupted. "We should get used to it, shouldn't we?"

He thought he could very much get used to it. "We should," he answered in a low voice. "In time. "But for now, I'm still the chauffeur."

She tipped her head to the side, undeterred. "Not since you've kissed me, I'm afraid." And then she extended her hand, knowing he would not resist that, and he didn't. He wondered if she knew how much romance became her. He sat down on the opposite side, twined hands in the center of the mattress. "Strange, isn't it?" she remarked. "We've just taken a leap, crossed a great divide into uncharted territory, but it doesn't feel like that really. It feels very familiar, us like this."

"Well, all that's changed is that we've stopped pretending."

"_Some_ things have changed."

She cast him a knowing glance, leaning in, but he stayed her by asking, "Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

She shook her head slowly, but not shyly. "I suppose I'm not very good," she said, wrinkling her nose. "But then," she considered, leaning in again, "isn't that what the practice is for?" But he turned his head to the side, frustrating her lips to their aim, leaving them to brush only his cheek.

"No, I don't mean it like that."

She sat up straight now, rebuffed. "How do you mean it?"

His next words were the hardest of any he had ever had to say in his life, even harder than the ones he had said in York. But he said them and he meant them and never let it be said that his love was selfish, that her happiness didn't mean more to him than his own. "Wanting to escape is a very good reason to leave, but it's a bad reason to marry. I want you to go- I'll drive you to the train station myself-if you want to. But you don't need me to get away from this life and go and make the life you want. I think you could do near anything you wanted."

"Tom."

"What?"

"I am Lady Sybil Crawley with an aunt in London and half my family in America. I have an occupation and I'm willing to bet the jewelry I'm wearing right now is worth more pounds than you've ever seen in your life. If I only wanted to leave, I could do it without you? Do you really not think I know that?" She burst into a fit of laughter, and he realized then that it was all going to be alright. "What do you think I've been doing, coming around the garage all these years?" She took his face in her hands, her face falling serious. "What I want is you."

"I don't want to live, all alone, in a house in Eaton Square," she continued, recalling Mary's once harsh proclamation at the breakfast table. "That's not my idea of freedom. I want to see everything, to experience everything, to _feel_ everything, everything I can. Do you know how many beds I stripped for soldiers who were the same age as me or younger even- eighteen or nineteen, just boys really- and I would think, what if this year were my last? Would I be satisfied with what I've gotten from life?" She shook her head emphatically. "No. _No_. I want so much more. You want it too," she murmured, her seriousness morphing into passion, a raw, almost desperate desire she had never revealed to him before. "I saw it in you before I even knew it was in me. That ambition, that same hunger- I hope we're never sated. Never let me be sated."

"Never," he promised, capturing her kiss.

Neither of them wanted to stop, but at some point, many minutes later, they knew they had to before they couldn't. "Let's go," she said, near-delirious with joy. "Tomorrow!"

He pulled back to gauge the sincerity of that comment, looking both surprised and pleased. "Do you mean that?"

She suddenly felt a bit sheepish, as if she had eaten one too many biscuits. "I think so," she replied, knowing that the courage to act almost always starts with the courage to speak. "You said four months back in August and I've almost made you wait that long."

"The war made me wait," he corrected gently, taking her hand. "Those were the terms you set and you kept to them. And as I said, it was moot because I would have waited forever." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, finding that none of the euphoria of the catch had abated.

"True," she replied, thrilling in his attention. "But you were very specific about going back to Ireland before the end of the year. Though you still haven't told me why."

She watched as his face was overtaken by an entirely different kind of euphoria. "I want to go home to vote, Sybil. Because I can vote now, for the first time. Even though I'm not some wealthy landowner, even though I just work for one, I can have a say in my country's future. And so can a lot other people."

"Oh, Tom!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "I wish I could say I know how it feels, but I know how much I _want_ a vote and I'm so happy you get to have one."

"Can I tell you how much this means? I'm not sure you even can know. My grandparents went through the Famine. They worked for those landowners, they were their tenants, and they had no right to property because they couldn't vote to _give_ themselves the right. And now, any man over twenty-one-"

"And the women?" she interjected.

"Not for a few years yet, love." Sybil made a face. "I'm sorry. But thirty's not so far off."

"Ha!" she scoffed. "Go on, tell me more about you young _men_ getting the vote."

"With no more property requirement, all the lads forced to fight England's war, the university students, the wives and mothers, so many people whose rights have been denied them for so long- they're going to get a say. This could be Ireland's moment. The great change we've been waiting for could actually be just a few weeks away."

She loved how he looked in this moment- rhapsodic, like freedom incarnate, real tangible freedom that could be held like a bird in the hand, drunk like wine, freedom that rubbed against the skin. She knew she had _felt_ exactly how he looked now, for it was how she felt reading those smuggled pamphlets by candlelight in her room, being in the middle of that shouting and jostling crowd in Ripon, the palpable electricity of hearing the vote count read out. It was the soaring, narcotic high that can only be quickened by politics, that anyone who was not political would not understand, the purity of feeling that comes from touching both history and the future at once. The kinship she felt with him in this moment overwhelmed her, not least because they had come back to that which had united them in the beginning and in a way, they were touching both their own history and future right now.

"When is the vote?"

"December 18th." He looked directly at her. "I know it's not much time and we don't have a plan-"

She stopped him once more. "What would you have done if I didn't come tonight? Or tomorrow? Or the second week of December?" Now it was she who took his hands and held them in hers. "I don't want you to tell me you would have waited forever. We both know that while that's a lovely expression, it's not really true, nor something I would even want."

"Come here, my English girl," he urged, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her. "Let me explain love-speak to you, because you British can be so logical," he teased, dropping a kiss on her nose before turning serious. "I would have gone back to cast my vote. But my heart would have remained where it is right now- here with you, forever, until you wanted to rejoin it with me."

She looked up at him from her position settled against him. "Well, I think it would be very bad to let you wander off without your heart. What if you need it?"

"That's true," he rued. "We Irish aren't logical enough. That's probably why we've been conquered for so long."

"As a trained nurse, it's probably my duty to make sure you and your heart are properly fixed." Her jocular tone fell away. "And as soon as possible."

"Believe me, I'd go tomorrow if we could, but it will take a few weeks to make the arrangements for Ireland." He realized that tonight had made returning to Ireland a much more daunting and thorough undertaking. When it had been just him, he could have jumped the next train to the coast and shown up on his mother's doorstep with nothing but the clothes on his back. Such was the prerogative of a bachelor; the prerogative of a future husband- especially Lady Sybil Crawley's (poor Irish servant) future husband- was another thing entirely.

"But a few weeks will too long." She sat up and away from him, full of concern. "You'll miss the election!"

"Well..." He didn't have a satisfactory answer and truly, this was the best night of his life, couldn't the problems wait until the morning?

Not for his English girl who was clearly, brow-knitted, already playing out the various scenarios in her head. "There is one solution," she offered slowly, looking at him. "We could go to Scotland."

He hadn't ever considered that- eloping in secret, then returning to Downton. He had just assumed they would marry- honor in tact- in Ireland, in a church, all by the book, affording at least a few weeks for her family to figure out how they would lie about it. "Are you serious?"

"If we can arrange travel to Ireland in time for the election, fine. But if not, you can go ahead and I'll follow. And no one will be able to stop me because I'll be your wife."

"Jesus." He ran a hand through his hair. It would be an insult to injury, one he wasn't sure Lord Grantham could ever forgive. "Your family won't like it. Even my kind know what eloping means."

"They won't like it at all. But there's too much they could do to keep us apart if you went and I stayed, if we were discovered. I think we should marry as soon as possible and whatever happens after that, happens. We will have made our choice. Then it will be up to them to make theirs," she concluded with a shrug he didn't quite buy.

Still, it was her family, her sacrifice, and she would know best how to deal with them. "You're ready to do it, then? Tomorrow?" She nodded. "Tomorrow," he repeated incredulous. In two days time, they would be together, same as they were now, except everything will have changed. They exchanged a smile, aware they were both thinking the same thing, and this time when she leaned in, her aim was more than satisfied.

"But, you know," she said playfully, toying with his collar, "if you want to marry me, you might want to _ask_ me first."

He was predictably aghast. "I've been asking you for two straight years!"

"You haven't asked me to _marry_ you," she clarified pointedly.

"That's true," he rued, looking at their hands. "I suppose I never made it to the proposal back in York."

"Tom?" He lifted his eyes to hers. "Ask me. Ask me now."

"Would you like to marry me?"

"Yes, I would.

"Will you, then? Will you marry me?"

"Yes. I will."


	23. Chapter 23: To Scotland, 1918 Part II

_Thanks as ever for the kind reviews and hello to the new readers!_

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><p>Sybil arrived, safe and unseen, back in her room and was shocked to learn she had only been gone a little more than an hour. <em>Had it all really happened that fast? <em>She went to her closet and took down her suitcase, as memories flowed through her mind: packing for York, fretting that she would be seen as someone who couldn't carry her own bags, slipping the note under Tom's door in which she had (rather cleverly, she thought) skirted the issue of what they were to each other by signing it only _SPC_. She smiled at that; had time stretched for her tonight as it had for her demi-namesake? _Tom is more Penelope than I am_, she thought, with his fidelity and perfect belief. It had been she who had taken the trek. And tomorrow, there is Scotland. And then Ireland. And after that, who knows? _Who wants to know_? They could let the wind decide.

The suitcase stayed on the floor in the closet- Anna never went in there- but what to put in it? Nothing, she supposed, except a wedding dress. Or rather, a wedding outfit. She didn't own a wedding dress and she wouldn't be procuring one in the next sixteen or so hours. _What do people wear when they elope_? She supposed theirs was an unusual elopement, as they were both a bit too old to steal the car in fevered haste and race off, their parents and the police in hot pursuit. Their marriage wasn't illegal, just undesirable and heavily priced, in reputation and unrealized fortune, for her family.

She decided on a cream blouse and a green skirt, an unspectacular outfit that would stop no bridegroom's heart, but it was functional for a long car ride and what she expected would be an early, quick, and austere ceremony. There would be no white veil, no flowering garlands, Mama wouldn't be weeping and trotting out her American cliches, Mary and Edith wouldn't be ribbing Mama about her Yank sentimentalism, her mother and her sisters wouldn't be there at all. Yet, it all seemed very distant to her and she found she did not yearn to reify those childish visions of church bells and roses any more than she did her dream of riding a horse across the wild west. She had what she wanted: her freedom and the full confidence that her marriage would be a baptism and not a last rite, a beginning and not an end, to the life she desired.

But still, it would be a day to remember and she wanted to make _some_ impression- it was their wedding, after all.

She didn't dare ask Mary- Mary would want to know why and she had never been able to successfully pull one over on her- so she went to Edith's room. "Edith, do you have a string of pearls?"

Edith looked up from her novel. "No. Why?"

"Oh, no reason," Sybil fibbed. "I just thought I remembered seeing you wear them one time."

Edith shrugged. "If I did, I borrowed them from Mama. Ask her."

It was late, but there was light under her parents' door, so she knocked. Her mother broke into a grin when she saw her youngest daughter in the doorway. "Hello, stranger. This is quite a surprise," Cora greeted. "I think it's been years since you visited after dinner."

"Has it?" Sybil demured, knowing full well why.

Her mother nodded, eagerly setting aside her book and Sybil knew she had to commit to at least a little bit of conversation. "You've been so busy these past few years, I feel like I've barely seen you at all." Sybil took a seat on the bed beside her mother, who now seemed to be inspecting her face, as if trying catalog the changes of those years. It made Sybil deeply uncomfortable, to be stared into when she was holding such a big secret inside. She was about to change the subject- to the weather, to _anything_- when her mother asked, "Do you miss working?"

"I do," she admitted. "But-" she chose her next words carefully- "things must change, musn't they? And we must change with them."

Her mother reached for her hand; it was unfathomable to Sybil that she had been holding hands with Tom on his bed not an hour ago. "Everyone had such high praise for you," Cora told her. "It made me so proud to hear it."

"Do you mean it?" she asked, surprised and touched. "You were proud of me?"

"Very."

Her mother's sincerity almost hurt, knowing how that pride would be snuffed out tomorrow when her family discovered what she had done, how angry and ashamed her mother would be, and she launched herself into her mother's arms as if she were a child again. _Please don't hate me Mama... _Would her mother ever speak to her after the elopement? Sybil didn't know, so for now, she just relished this moment and a recognition she never thought she would ever get, ever, from either of her parents. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Mama."

Her mother rubbed her back, as she always did. It was another mark of her Americanism, this overwrought physical expression, and no one had been bestowed more of it over the years than her youngest child; she briefly wondered if her mother was to blame for her attraction to impassioned Irishmen. But tonight, it was a comfort to simply receive her mother's love on the last night of her life unburdened and unresponsible for someone else's. "There now," Cora soothed her. "I know." _No, y__ou don't. _"I know it's hard." _Well, that's true._

Cora had always felt keenly attuned to Sybil because she was eternally her baby; because as a baby, Sybil had liked to be held, unlike Edith who fussed and Mary who couldn't wait to leap out of her arms; because there had been no time in her life when Cora had felt so much an exile as after the birth of her third daughter. It was a bond Sybil knew nothing of, formed in the first hours of her life when they were the lone ones uninitiated into this house, yet cast out from Eden, they had each other, Cora and her baby without a name. Even after, thank God, things normalized, Cora never forgot that and the protectiveness it quickened for her youngest was permanently imprinted. She could feel something stirring in Sybil now; whether she would confide in her was another story. "Now, what did you come to see me about?"

"I wondered if you had a pearl necklace and if I may borrow it."

"Oh?" Cora tried to read her daughter's face. "Is there some occasion I should know about?"

"I'm just playing about in my room," Sybil deflected. To make it more convincing, she added, "I saw a picture in a magazine and was inspired."

Cora was not convinced, but she didn't think she would get a better answer out of Sybil and a necklace seemed harmless enough. "Yes, you may. It's in the box over there." Sybil went and retrieved it, then came back to kiss her mother goodnight.

"Do you want me to put it on?"

"Well- sure." She turned and lifted her hair, feeling a surge of guilt as Cora clasped it around her neck. "Thank you, Mama."

"Cora, who is this stranger in our room?" Robert boomed, coming in from his dressing room in pajamas.

"Why, that's exactly what I said!"

Sybil rolled her eyes. "Hello, Papa," she said, as he came over to inspect the necklace.

It dawned on Sybil that her parents chose to share a bed, _liked_ to share a bed, even while keeping up the pretense of separate quarters, and they let their daughters know it. _I suppose I've never thought of them as two people in a marriage- __they've always just been our parents_. _Were they teaching us a lesson about married life? _she wondered. She would have loved to ask her mother about that, to _talk_ to her about this and all the questions running through her mind.

"Didn't I give that to you," her father asked her mother, "a long time ago?"

"Yes, the first Christmas we were married. It looks lovely on her, don't you think?"

"Yes it does. In fact," Robert continued, his voice surprisingly thick with emotion, "I dare say this whole scene is like a photograph from how it used to be. It pleases me very much." He was looking directly at Sybil and she quickly averted her eyes to the floor. He sighed and forced a smile. "But I don't wish to disturb you, so I'll retire to my dressing room."

"No, no," Sybil protested, getting up. "I'm tired as well. Goodnight."

No sooner had the door closed than Robert turned to Cora, full of curiosity. "Well, well. Dare I ask what Sybil was doing looking for pearls?"

"Don't get your hopes up," Cora warned. "I already asked. She was just looking through magazines."

"Better magazines than radical pamphlets," he sniffed. "Though I suppose I should be glad to have gotten through the war without her running off with some Tommy. Or trying to enlist herself."

Cora laughed. "That sounds more like our daughter."

Robert settled in next to his wife, his demeanor turning serious. "Now that Mary is settled, we must think about Sybil's future. And we must push her to do the same."

"Gently, Robert. Gently," Cora cautioned. "The transition hasn't been easy for her."

"Still..."

"_Robert_." She stopped him with a look.

He supposed she was right; after ages away, Sybil had visited their room, confiding in her mother, trying on her jewelry, and that was enough for tonight. Still, he wondered out loud, "Is it too much to hope things are finally getting back to normal?"

* * *

><p>It was past midnight, the day was upon them. Sybil was in bed, the necklace packed in the suitcase in the closet, Tom's kiss on her lips. She had shrugged off the emotions she felt in her parents' room by drifting back earlier in the night- the garage, his cottage, his bedroom, how right it felt to say yes, how right it felt to kiss him, to give in to that desire. She didn't know the first thing about being someone's wife- but then, she hadn't known the first thing about kissing someone and it had come quite naturally. And he was just as ignorant about marriage as she was. They would learn and improve; together, they would figure it out.<p>

Starting tomorrow.

She would put on that simple skirt, her mother's necklace, fix her hair as fancy as she could herself. She could get some flowers, there must be a flower shop in Gretna Green. _What about a ring_? _Do we need a ring to make it official_? Tom surely didn't have one; perhaps she should bring one of her own just in case. And then there was the honeymoon. _A__h, I definitely don't have anything to wear for that_.

It dawned on her that this could very well be her last night in her old room. Even if her parents allowed her back into the house, they would never let Tom in. And she will have to tell them that she won't go where he can't. _That's what those vows are all about, aren't they? Forsake all others_. It should be terrifying except it's strangely not...

Tom lay back on the pillow, an arm behind his head. He had cleaned up the front room, washed and put all the dishes back in their place. It looked exactly as it had the day he had arrived, ready for its next occupant. He had organized his few possessions, piling neat stacks of books and newspaper archives, hoping Lord Grantham wouldn't have them burned when he realized his car, his driver, and his daughter were all missing. His own clothes had been returned to the trunk he had brought over from Ireland, the chauffeur's uniforms were hanging neatly in the closet. In sum, the bedroom had been adequately arranged for a hasty and final exit when they returned from Gretna Green.

Gretna Green. To marry Sybil Crawley. _Tomorrow_.

After all the false starts, all the times he had lost hope, when he was sure it would never happen, it's tomorrow. Maybe it was the faded papers that had him waxing nostaglic, but he couldn't stop thinking about those early days... the first time he turned around to smile at her and she smiled back... the time he had impulsively taken her hand... the nights he had lain in this very bed wondering what it would be like to kiss his employer's daughter.

It had taken five years to find out, every minute of them worth it.

* * *

><p>The plan was to leave shortly after the family sat down to dinner. She was in her robe when Anna came in to help her dress. "I've a terrible headache. I think I'll just go to bed." Anna helped take her hair down, with a sympathetic look, and left. Sybil passed the next hours staring out the window, the wan winter's daylight already extinguished. She thought of Tom readying in his cottage and smiled.<p>

When it was time, she took out her trench (because it rained in the mornings). Coat and shoes on, suitcase in hand, she took a last look around her room: Mama's photograph, Mary's flowers, Edith's drawing. Should she take them with her, just in case? Perhaps she was too optimistic, but she didn't believe this was the end for them. Her eye came to rest on the little ceramic elephant, the present from her father. That one she put in her pocket. A memento, just in case.

* * *

><p>It was no coincidence that Mary noticed Sybil was missing after the (latest) confrontation with Richard. She looked immediately for her little sister, whose expressions and posture of late exhibited exactly what she was feeling in this moment- sour and entirely exhausted of all this. Mary had watched Sybil closely over the past few weeks. She ached for her because she knew how it felt and she feared for her because she knew, all too well, what those feelings could do.<p>

And so, when Edith said Sybil wasn't well and wouldn't be down for dinner, Mary just _knew_.

The locked door with no answer had nearly stopped her heart; she would never say it out loud but the first thing Mary felt when she realized Sybil had eloped was relief.


	24. Chapter 24: To Scotland, 1918 Part III

**_Very important author's note! I randomly came across an awesome historical fact that fits perfectly into the timeline of story and will make it so much better- only problem is, I found it two chapters too late! So... I have decided to change (tweak, really) the proposal-garage scene. So go back and read the new and improved chapter 22 (fyi, the updated content starts when they're sitting on the bed) and then come back here._**

_... okay, onto this chapter. To be honest, I never planned to write around the inn scene because it never bothered me but since so many people commented that it bothered them, I decided to add it in. I left a comment on Sybil on the show that relates to that scene/series 2 if interested. Enjoy! _

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 150km<em>

She had brushed it off her desk as she sat trying to write her letter to her family.

She had pulled it out of her suitcase when she packed, shoved it back in the drawer, shut it up in the armoire.

She had stepped on it and kicked it off the path, as she made what would be her last secret visit to the garage.

But as they left the town limits of Downton, she couldn't deny that it had eluded all her attempts to squash it and had followed her into the car, where it now buzzed around her head like a hornet.

_Doubt_.

Something was wrong. She hated to admit it, but she trusted her intuition and her intuition was misfiring all over the place. She had turned in her seat as they drove away from Downton- the place she was born, the only home she had ever known, the people she had loved her whole life- and watched as it receded into the distance, until it was out of sight.

And she felt nothing.

How was that possible? Was she really so cold-hearted? How could she feel nothing about leaving and yet feel so anxious and unhappy about feeling nothing? She was so obviously upset that Tom did a double-take beside her asking,"Are you alright? Do you need to stop for a minute?"

It was then she realized that it felt inconsequential. No different than if they were driving into town for an errand and she would be back soon. Somehow, she just knew she would be back soon. And not as Tom's wife.

And that was going to make the long drive in the dark talking about weddings and the future- _their_ wedding and _their_ future- rather uncomfortable.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 122km<em>

Neither of them had ever driven farther than Ripon at night. The roads north were even darker and more desolate than those where they lived (although she supposed "used to live" was the correct phrase now), in addition to being unfamiliar. The few houses and shops they passed along the way were already shuttered for the evening and the darkness made strange shapes. The facetious question her father had once thrown at her in the safe and familiar confines of her bedroom- "_Are you so knowledgeable about the great world_?"- echoed in her ears.

Tom's thoughts were the same questions weighing on him since last night- how could he make a life for them and how soon could he do it?- but he was coming up as empty as this place they were now driving through, wherever that was.

She spoke to stamp out the din of silence. "So," she began, shifting in her seat to look at him. "What will you tell your people?"

_Christ_.

Didn't they have enough problems to solve without bringing in his mother?

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 100km  __Carlisle - 82km_

Carlisle, the biggest city on the route, had sent her mulling about partners and the choice of a spouse.

"I honestly don't know what Mary sees in him."

"Who?"

"Sir Richard." He made a face and she laughed. "Exactly. I don't like to be unkind to anyone and he's never been anything but polite to me, but there's something about him I don't like."

She couldn't explain it, but any time Sir Richard's flinty eyes turned to her, she instinctively wanted to step back. He struck her as a person with deep-seated rage, a brew of bitterness and insecurity, that could be set off at any moment. She stole a sideways look at Tom- she had once accused him of being angry all the time, but he wasn't. He had been angry- nay, _hopeless_- for a spell at the start of the year, a foul mood that had lasted several months unabated (which she admitted was not without warrant), but he was also hopeful and optimistic and when he smiled, it came straight from his soul. Maybe that's what was unnerving about Sir Richard- even when he smiled it seemed like a veneer, a disguise he put on to be seen as normal. She hated to think of her sister trapped at Haxby with him as a companion for the rest of her life.

"She doesn't love him. Not the way she should anyway."

"Why's she doing it then?"

She sighed. "Mary loves a challenge."

Maybe a challenge precluded being completely at ease with one's spouse. But she could never marry someone she didn't fully trust, nor someone who didn't fully trust her. She cast another glance at the driver's seat and smiled. She could not and she was not.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 90km<em>

"Do you know what we haven't talked about?" She looked over, blank. "Tomorrow."

"Ah." She realized that didn't sound terribly enthusiastic. "Wait, what's tomorrow again?" she asked with a grin.

"Have you thought about what you might like to do?"

"In Gretna Green? I don't know a thing about the place. I just read about it in a book, like everyone else."

"Fair enough," he laughed. "I'm sure there are restaurants, maybe a park or an overlook or something. For afterwards. It won't be a garden party, but we can make a decent enough celebration, just us."

"Tom." He looked over. "You're wonderful. Really wonderful, and I love you for it," she told him. "But we're sneaking across the border, in my father's car, in the middle of the night, to elope. I think we celebrate- just us- by going straight to the inn. I think that's the general idea."

She was much too pleased to be abashed by the smile she saw tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Well, we both know you give the orders."

* * *

><p><em>(Scotland - 150+ km)<em>

Mary entered her other sister's room without knocking. Indignant, Edith started to protest, but fell silent upon seeing that Mary had changed back into her day clothes. Mary swept over, coming very close to Edith. "Be quiet. You need to get dressed."

"Mary, it's the middle of the night-"

"I'm well aware of the time and I wouldn't involve you except that I need a driver."

"Isn't that why we have a chauffeur?"

"It's funny you should ask," Mary responded. Edith noticed her sister's face was not its usual bemused mask, but was genuinely stark."It seems the chauffeur has absconded with our baby sister."

"_What_?"

"They're on their way to Greta Green to elope. If we don't stop them."

"Sybil and _Branson_? Branson, the chauffeur?" Mary nodded. Sybil had said _drastic_, but this just seemed bizarre. Unless... were they_ together_? Her little sister had always been secretive. Is it possible that Sybil had been carrying on a love affair with the family chauffeur- still driving them all around- and no one had noticed? Then again, Mary was suspiciously calm. _Maybe not no one_, Edith thought.

"She left a note that explains it," Mary informed her. "But we don't have time to bother with that now. Get dressed. We'll meet Anna at the car."

Mary turned to leave, but Edith reached out and stopped her arm. "You don't seem surprised."

"Neither do you," she retorted, turning once more.

"Mary."

"What?" she snapped, but Edith knew it was not so much directed at her as out of worry for Sybil. Yet she held no delusions about Mary's motivations: Mary would do anything for Sybil, even if that meant teaming up with Edith.

"Mary. Do you think- is Sybil-" Edith couldn't quite bring herself to say the words and Mary wasn't helping, staring, mute, with an expressionless face. "Is she in trouble?"

"No! God, no. No." Mary's face puckered with distaste at the question. "Sybil's not stupid and she's _not_ like that."

_Not like you, you mean_, Edith snarled back in her mind. But in reality, she kept her mouth shut and Mary shook her head imperiously and walked away, as she always did, quite clearly finished with talking to Edith.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 65km<em>

"We should probably stop."

They were coming up on the first inn with its lights on that they'd seen in at least an hour. He pulled the brake and they took a few minutes to collect themselves and concoct a story about who they were, where they were from and headed to. It turned out to be unnecessary; the older couple that ran the inn didn't ask why a man who was so clearly common Irish had a ubiquitous English surname ("Johnson") and was travelling in a wildly expensive car with a young woman ("my wife, Laura") whose clothes were so much finer than his. They paid in advance, as they were planning to leave before dawn. The wife offered them tea by the fire in the sitting room, while the husband led Tom upstairs to the room to drop off their suitcases and coats.

Tom wasn't listening as the innkeeper told him more than he needed to know about the room, the inn and its amenities, the surrounding environs. He was thinking about Sybil and the car ride- how nothing had gone wrong, but something felt amiss. She seemed pensive and even when they talked- and all their conversations had been fine, they had laughed, they hadn't fought- he felt like he was pulling her out of herself. He wasn't sure how to address it or if he even should, if there was even anything to address.

He went back downstairs, where he found Sybil at a two-person table by the fire, stirring a cup of tea. Now, though, he knew something was wrong- he could tell from her demeanor she was not pleased. He kissed her cheek and she nearly bristled. "What?" he asked quietly, easing into the seat across from her.

She said nothing for a long minute, just went about fixing her tea with that same stiff jaw that all of her family got when they were upset. Finally, after two methodical sips, she spoke. "The wife said to me," she started, with a fleeting glance upward to make sure the room was empty, "that if we needed anything, I shouldn't hesitate to knock on her door." She looked at him for recognition and found none; he had absolutely no idea why that was upsetting. "She wasn't talking about _you_," she sat straight in her chair, hand grazing her stomach for emphasis.

"_Oh_," he realized. "Do you want me to say something?"

"Of course not. She was trying to be kind."

"Still, it seems wrong to assume-"

"It's perfectly reasonable to assume," she interrupted. "Why do you think they didn't ask us any questions? Or for identification? They run an inn near to nowhere except the border. Who else do you think comes here?"

He had made this very point last night, and she hadn't cared. But that was last night and a hypothetical; clearly, the situation had changed. "Well, maybe she was right to assume, but her assumption was wrong, can we agree on that?"

"Did you know that maid Ethel?"

"Sure, I knew her. We weren't friendly, though," he recalled. "I saw her sometimes in the dining room, but we didn't talk much. She rubbed a lot of the staff the wrong way. Why?"

"She came to the house today- burst in, I should say- with her baby."

"_Really_? I'd not heard that."

"I'm surprised. It was quite a scene."

He tipped his head and smiled at her. "I had other things on my mind today besides downstairs gossip. What happened?"

"I couldn't believe the things that were said, with her holding her child not an arm's length away. It was merciless. My family was merciless."

He considered carefully the next words he would say, how he would approach the subject. "Are you worried-"

"I'm tired," she cut him off. "Do you mind if I go up?" He shook his head. "Great. Finish your tea. I'll see you in a bit."

He didn't want the rest of the half-full cup, it was getting cold anyway. _Appropriate_, he thought.


	25. Chapter 25: To Scotland 1918 Part IV

_Thanks as always for the kind reviews!_

* * *

><p>He gave her a half hour, thumbing idly through a book about hunting dogs that had been left out for the entertainment of the guests, cold tea at his elbow. To keep from wondering what she was thinking about alone in their room, he thought about how in the world he would begin to explain all this to his mother.<p>

She sat on the corner of the bed thinking about momentum, the life-blood of rebellion. She wished they had kept driving, farther and faster, too fast to think about the recriminations and consequences, her parents' reaction when they learned the chauffeur had indeed burned the place down and she had lit the match. They didn't have to stop- _why did we stop_?- it didn't have to be Gretna Green, any town in Scotland would do, they could have chased the dawn all the way to Edinburgh.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 130km<em>

Once they were safely on the road and out of town, Edith asked again about the letter. Mary reluctantly took it out of her pocket. "I can't read it, there's not enough light," she fibbed. "Anna, would you do it?" Anna took the letter and, swallowing hard, read the few sentences aloud:

_To my family,_

_By the time you read this, I expect it will be morning and I will be taking that sacred vow to love, honor and be ever faithful to Tom Branson. I know this will come as quite a shock to you, but it is not a rash decision for us- we have been speaking of marriage for two years. I asked him to wait for me until the end of the war and with the war now over, it is my wish to be married immediately. We've taken the car to Gretna Green and shall return shortly._

_I hope you will permit me to tell you more later, though I am prepared for the possibility that you will not wish to speak to me again._

_Regardless I remain,_

_your loving daughter,_  
><em>Sybil<em>

"Two _years_?" Edith exclaimed. "Anna, did you know about this? Did they know downstairs?"

Anna didn't know what to say- she didn't want to lie, but the letter Mr. Branson had left for Lady Sybil wasn't her secret to tell and she had expressly promised she wouldn't. Fortunately, she was saved by Lady Mary. "Edith, don't be stupid. Of course no one knew. Carson will be as furious as Papa."

"Well, that's what I would have assumed," Edith huffed. "But obviously _you_ knew and never said."

Mary was taken aback by Edith's assertion, but she didn't argue and Edith knew she was right. "I would never betray my sister," Mary informed her pointedly. "Not to our father and not to you."

* * *

><p>He wasn't quite sure what to expect when he opened the door, but she was still dressed and sitting on the still-made bed. She startled a bit when he entered.<p>

"Everything alright?" he asked tentatively.

She smiled. "Just fine."

"I thought you would be asleep."

"Oh. Right." She nodded towards the bed. "I wasn't sure what we wanted to do."

"I'll sleep in the chair." He couldn't quite decipher the expression on her face, but it wasn't the relief he expected. It looked like she might want to quibble, but decided against it- another iteration of how everything had been this evening, a little off-kilter, trying to dance but never quite finding the rhythm. The practical realities of being on the run were doing much to frustrate the romantic notions of running away together. _They never write about this part in books_.

"Mind if I wash up?" The words were an awkward intrusion into the silence.

"Not at all."

The bathroom door shut. Sybil sighed and got up to search for extra blankets. _Yes, we should have kept driving_, all the way to Edinburgh and tomorrow because then it would be done and they would be in a hotel room knowing exactly what they were supposed to do, instead of fumbling around the bed and the chair and each other.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 120 km<em>

They raced through the cold, black night in silence. Mary spent most of the ride watching the road and gripping the inside handle, thinking it was entirely likely she would meet her end tonight at the hands of Edith's driving. Any time spent not fearing for her life or shooting daggers to her right after an especially jarring swerve or brake, she spent thinking about what she would say to Sybil. _If Edith doesn't kill us first._

Sybil was not even the age she had been that fateful day when Evelyn had brought a foreign visitor to the house. Mary thought about where her mind and her heart were at that point in her life. _I know how she feels, but she has no idea how much she doesn't know_. _She thinks she's prepared to bear whatever comes, but she can't imagine how hard it will hit her or how long a lifetime is to live_.

But good luck trying to convince Sybil of that. It had taken Kemal Pamuk all of a day to talk Mary out of her future; Branson had been working on Sybil for five years.

_The easy part will be arriving alive_, she thought, glaring at Edith as the car banged over another pothole.

* * *

><p>He came out from washing up, still toweling off, and she went to trade places, taking a few toiletries she had brought with her. "I found some extra blankets. They're on the bed." She indicated the hand towel he was holding. "Are you done with that? I can hang it up."<p>

"Thank you," he replied, letting her take it and fold it. "Do you need help with your hair?"

"No, I pinned it myself. It'll come down easily enough." She smiled at him. "I won't be long."

The nervous, discordant energy bouncing between them proved too much to bear and he broke, his hand falling on her arm as she passed. "It's alright like this, you and me?"

"Yes." Her response was both automatic and true, she was relieved he had said something, and the relief quickened in his eyes tugged at her heart. "It's much better than alright." She didn't have a free hand so she reached her lips to his, their first contact since she'd come running down to the garage, suitcase in hand, a lifetime ago and he had swept her into his arms, marking the start of their new life with ardent kisses for courage and luck.

And just like that, it became much better.

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 100km<em>

Anna sat in the back seat and thought about how Mr. Branson greeted her every morning, had greeted her this morning_, _with a cheerful hello at the start of what was to be another day of waiting, another day of fearing all would be lost today. Every day for two years- 730 days- he had asked; for 729 of them she had said _maybe_ or _not yet_ or flat-out _no_. _How __many of those days had he believed her?_ Anna wondered. But he hadn't ever given up. And then, on the 730th day, he got what he wanted, the words _yes_ and _now_.

She thought about Lady Sybil earlier this evening, sitting in her bedroom and her world full of fine things, none finer than her birthright which would afford her any number of futures that Anna couldn't even begin to dream of. She had walked away from all of it, all for this love.

Lady Sybil was often dismissed by her family and the staff as naive, but Anna suspected she was just wise beyond the years.

What Anna did not think about was how Lady Mary had gasped out the words in Lady Sybil's letter- "_Gretna Green_" and "_elope_"- without ever mentioning _with whom_. It wasn't her place to wonder why that wasn't a surprise and she didn't. Anna wasn't actually one of them, as much as it might seem sometimes- like now, the three girls racing across the north of England in the second car stolen from Lord Grantham tonight.

* * *

><p>He was fixing the chair into a makeshift bed when she came out of the bathroom. "I don't like this," she frowned. "It won't be at all comfortable for you."<p>

"I'll be fine," he assured her. "It's just for a few hours. And I can sleep anywhere." That admission struck her; they had been friends for years, they had been pretending for years, but they had been engaged for only one day. There was so much they didn't know about each other- for example, sleeping habits- and so much they had painstakingly avoided, especially after York. She suddenly started to laugh.

"What is it?"

"I only just learned tonight how you take your tea. In five years, we've never had tea together before."

He pondered it for a moment. "That's true."

"Silly, isn't it? It seems like such an inconsequential thing, but we'll do it every day of our lives. It's a good thing to know about a person." She caught herself and amended, "A husband."

She was still amused, as she sorted through her suitcase, smiling and looking perfectly beautiful in plain clothes with her hair down. "I'm sorry that's the extent of our courtship," he rued. "One cup of tea, courtesy of an inn near to nowhere."

"That's terrible," she chided. "My grandmother would not approve."

"I'll bet."

"She would say you shouldn't be lamenting a one-day courtship," she clarified. "But rather, you should boasting that you hit my heart on the first try. We've got to work with what we've got and all that." She surveyed the room, hands on her hips. "I don't think I'm going to change. As you said, it's just for a few hours. Do you mind if I take one of the blankets?"

"No," he answered. "Lie down." She did and he spread it over her. "Good?" She nodded. "Good." She held his gaze for a moment, before he leaned over and kissed the crown of her head, lingering there. "Goodnight. And I am sorry. I know neither of us care much about rules or custom, but I would have been proud to court you properly, to take you places-"

"You are taking me places," she interrupted softly. "Places I actually _want_ to go, not the town square of Downton."

"When we're married, I'll take you anywhere you like."

"Hmmm..." She pulled back to look at him. "How about the South Seas? Or a desert in the West?"

"Anywhere."

"Do you know where I'd like to go right now?"

"No," he whispered, brushing a loose stand off her forehead. "Where?"

"Nowhere." She reached her arms around his neck, taking him with her as she leaned back against the pillow. "Nowhere else in the whole world."

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 80km<em>

Edith was not so seasoned a driver that she could afford to think much beyond navigating the road in front of her and keeping control of the car, but on the long, smooth stretches, she allowed her mind to drift. (She justified it as a lesser evil than turning and punching Mary square in the nose, which would surely send the car careening into a ditch.)

No one had ever loved her- not John, not Sir Anthony, not Patrick or P. Gordon, whoever he was. Falling in love with Mary- _God knows why- _came as easily as breathing for men. Now, it seemed Sybil had been gifted with the same bewitching power as their older sister (along with the beauty and the confidence and the charm _et cetera, et cetera_).

For goodness sake, _she_ had probably spent more time with Branson than Sybil, all those hours alone when he was teaching her how to drive. They had made conversation, perfectly fine conversation in fact, but he had _never _tried to, never showed even an _inkling_- quite right, of course, that's how it _should_ be, he was not allowed to even dare think about it. But he had thought about it, feverishly, when it was Sybil. He fell under Sybil's spell, fell hard, spent _two years _of his life waiting, pleading, persuading, wanting to steal away with her, desperately in love, he'll never love another, she is the _only_ one, they simply _must_ be married, a life without her would not be worth living.

Meanwhile, that farmer's _wife_ had sent a letter to the house to let her know her presence was no longer desired. Mary and Sybil were practically writing their own novels, while all she had were a few hastily-written kiss-off notes. _God must have a real sense of humor_.

And anyway, aren't Sybil and Branson too high-minded for all this romanticism, always going on about grave matters like equality and politics? Isn't this incredibly indulgent for a couple of self-avowed socialists, all this passion and urgency and to-hell-with-everyone-else-and-the-world togetherness?

_Oh, what of it_? Edith didn't know anything about their relationship, the only ideas she has about love are the ones she imagines for herself, once again gone to one of her sisters.

* * *

><p>"<em>Goodnight<em>," he said- instructed, really- for the third time. She finally released his hand, looking at him from the half-propped pillow with a little pout and love-drowsed eyes. He blew her a kiss from the chair.

"It's really not necessary. You could just sleep on the other side, it's far more comfortable than that chair." She wanted him close because when he was close she thought only of the future; it was when they were apart that the past sneaked in.

"The light, love."

Sybil heaved a sigh of resignation and turned it out, before revealing into the darkness, "My parents share a bed." She wasn't sure why she was telling him that, other than it had been on her mind since visiting with her mother last night. "They pretend not to, but they do. I'm sure you didn't expect that. "

She heard him chuckle across from her. "I assure you I have never given one thought to your parents' sleeping arrangements."

"They weren't in love when they married. My father married my mother for her money. I'm not really sure why she married him. A title, I suppose, but she's so American it's rather funny to figure so. Maybe she loved him, I'm not sure. We're not supposed to know any of that, but Mama told Mary when Mary got engaged to Patrick and Mary told me. Mama's point to Mary was that a marriage that's loveless at the start won't necessarily be loveless forever."

"Did your sister believe her?"

Sybil smiled, recalling Mary's aghast face. "No."

"Clever girl."

"But Mary would have married him out of duty if she had had to, just like my father married my mother." She had a realization. "I think Papa won't accept my premise that I couldn't be happy any other way. He'll think I could be, I just didn't want to_ try_ to be."

There was a long pause before he asked, "What do you think about that?"

He thought she would take awhile, carefully choosing her words, but she answered immediately. "I don't think it's true for me. _I_ couldn't be happy. Maybe it makes me selfish, but it's the truth." She was quiet for a moment. "Do you remember the first time you took my hand, at the garden party?"

"Of course I remember. But I didn't actually take your hand," he corrected. "I never intended to take it, I mean. It just happened."

"I felt something very strong when it happened," she confessed. "Different than with other boys. I thought it was just my age, but looking back, I don't think it was that. Looking back, I think, in that moment, I might have heard the faintest echo of yes."

* * *

><p><em>Scotland - 65km<em>

"Now listen up," Mary began, trying to steady her voice, trying to believe that Sybil had kept her word and her virtue, trying to convince herself this disaster could still be undone. "All we need to do right now is get Sybil in the car. We don't need her to say she doesn't love him or agree that marrying him will ruin her life. She doesn't have to break with him, she doesn't have to do _anything_ other than get in the car and come home. That's it. So don't say anything stupid. In fact, don't say anything at all. Just let me do the talking."

* * *

><p>"Do you think it was fate?" she asked quietly into the darkness.<p>

"How do you mean?"

"Do you think we were supposed to meet, that you happened to come to England right as our old chauffeur was leaving?"

"I don't know," he answered. "What do you think?"

"I don't know either. But I suppose if we think that's fate, then everything else that happens must be fated too."

The conversation was stopped by a commotion in the stairwell and then the door to their room swung open.


	26. Chapter 26: Back Again 1918 Part I

_Thank you as ever for the reviews! This is a two-parter- second part coming soon (spoiler alert: it takes place at the cottage ;) )_

* * *

><p>The three sisters descended the stairs, the youngest between them, in silence. Mary held the back door of the car open for Sybil, her fear unable to be allayed until she had seen her sister into the motor herself. It did not occur to Mary how acutely the act of opening of the car door would hurt Sybil in this moment and when she touched Sybil's arm as she climbed in, Sybil angrily shook her off.<p>

Sybil did not speak, did not move, for the entire ride back to Downton, just stared out the window into the indistinguishable blackness.

She sat beside Anna who, out of both station and her own sense of decency, kept her eyes and her mind to herself. Edith stared straight ahead on the road, filled with guilt over what they had done and that terribly sad scene at the inn, praying for Mary to break the awful silence in the car. After all, the only person she knew with as hard and stubborn a will as her sister was her sister. Only Mary was more at ease (certainly more relaxed than she had been on the ride up), offering only the occasional mild correction or caution in regards to Edith's driving.

The situation had become real tonight for both Mary and Edith- and for Sybil too, although it would be a few more hours before she would be calm enough to process it. Edith couldn't deny she was impressed at how incisive Mary had been; she had calculated exactly how to make the case to Sybil and Sybil had responded exactly as Mary predicted. Edith knew she could never have convinced Sybil herself. But then, Edith wasn't sure she would have even tried once she saw them together. Perhaps it was because she had never been in love that she imagined them as smug and fearless lovers. How wrong she had been. Tonight she witnessed how humbling- humiliating even- love can be, how much it fears, how fragile it makes people. She watched her sister break someone's heart tonight, even as he begged her not to, even as she tried in vain to convince him she wasn't.

Edith couldn't identify with Sybil- she had never held that kind of power over anyone- but oh, she recognized the look on Branson's face, knew how _that_ felt, chauffeur or not.

Mary couldn't care less about Branson's pain; he brought it on himself, he wasn't even supposed to _speak_ to Sybil and if one wants to break the rules then one must be prepared to pay the price. But Sybil had kept her word. She had stayed true to herself, curled up on the bed with the chauffeur in the chair. And then she had promised to stay true to him. He might doubt that, but Mary did not.

If only she had been able to stay true to herself, true to Matthew... _Better than I was, indeed_.

* * *

><p>Tom sat on the sofa in the darkened front room of the inn, suitcase at his feet. He had escaped their room as quickly as possible, away from the bed, away from her kiss, her soft and sweet words<em>- "nowhere else"- so much for that. <em>But he hadn't thought beyond closing the door and descending the stairs and so, when he reached the bottom, he didn't know what to do next. So here he sat, staring out the window at the dusky outline of her father's car, wondering where he should go.

The angst he felt during those years when he didn't know her heart was nothing compared to having her reveal it, _believing_ it, and having her snatch it back, even if she claimed she hadn't. If he still had it, why did he feel so empty right now?

"_Believe it or not..._"

He thought that was an incredibly tatty thing to say as she was _walking out_ on him. Was it a challenge? A test? Had he not proven _his_ commitment? Part of him wanted to drive to Liverpool, catch the next boat back home, send Grantham a telegram about his car. Or better yet: _l__et Sybil tell him, let her figure it out_. Maybe he'd call on her in two years, find out how _her_ fidelity was coming along. Would she wait for him, as he had done for her? She had walked away so easily tonight, despite her earlier professions. Tonight, it was _Mary's right_, her parents don't deserve deceit; would tomorrow be _Mary's right_, her parents don't deserve a daughter who marries into the gutter, in their minds anyway?

He had guessed Lady Mary was bluffing when she said she was confident she could bring Sybil around (she was too visibly relieved by winning the argument at the inn to be _confident_), but now it was his confidence- in a changing world, in her, in them- that seemed preposterous.

* * *

><p>Sybil had been fighting tears as they left the inn, but there was no evidence of that now. She was completely stoic on the ride home and downright defiant by the time they pulled into the driveway.<p>

"I'm going to shut off the headlamps and drive slow," Edith announced nervously. "Hopefully we won't draw any attention." They had been so consumed with the chase that Edith was only just now considering what would happen if they were caught. _The way Papa had raged after the bye-election would look measured by comparison_. Sybil uttered an exasperated sigh, barely waiting for the car to come to a stop before she jumped out, slamming the door, and started marching up to the house. _Not that she cared a jot then. __Or now_.

Mary held up a hand to stay Edith's and Anna's concerns. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll get the suitcase," Anna volunteered as they exited the car, Edith following Mary with saucer-sized eyes. Sybil was forced to stop at the back door, as Mary knew she would be, because she didn't have keys. She kept her eyes down as Mary unlocked the door, then resumed her march up to her room with both her sisters, Anna and the suitcase in tow.

Sybil pushed into her bedroom-_ last night in my old room, so much for that_- and immediately went to sit as far away as possible, on her bed with her back to everyone. Her head felt like it was in a vise and the choke in her throat was making it hard to breathe. She was losing control and not in the good way. What she had said and done at the inn had made sense to her, but he didn't believe her. He _wanted_ to, but he didn't and she couldn't blame him. _And if he doesn't believe me, then who knows what happens next_.

Anna and Edith, standing uncomfortably in the corner of the room, looked at Sybil's rigid silhouette and to Mary for direction. "Fine then," Mary sighed. "We'll say goodnight, Sybil."

"G'night, Milady," Anna echoed quietly, as she crept over to put the suitcase next to Sybil and out of view of the door. Mary couldn't help but smile. _Anna thinks of everything._

"Wait." Sybil's words stopped them and she turned and faced the three women, huddled near the door. "I want to make myself perfectly clear so there's no misunderstanding as to what happened tonight. I am going to marry Tom. That hasn't changed. You've asked me to tell our parents before we do and I've agreed to do that. _Just_ that." She looked down at her hands. "That's all."

Edith glanced up at Mary, who was not one to accept conditions. "That's all we ask," Mary responded simply, to Edith's surprise. "Get some sleep. We'll see you in the morning."

Mary saved her eye-roll until she was safely in the hall and Edith couldn't suppress a giggle- _e__ven her darling Sybil can be a thorn in the lion's paw- _but the severe look from the lioness made her swallow her laughter.

"Anna, thank you so much," Mary began in a hushed whisper. "I know you have to be up in a few hours. If you need some time to rest tomorrow, just tell Mrs. Hughes you're not feeling well. We can manage. It's the least we can do after dragging you across half of England tonight."

"Not at all, Milady. I'll see you in the morning."

"And Anna," Edith added,"I think it doesn't have to be said that no one can know about this downstairs-"

"No, Edith, it doesn't have to be said," Mary interrupted curtly.

It was dark and Anna was looking at the floor, but Edith could have sworn she saw a smile. "Goodnight, miladies."

Anna left and Edith followed Mary into her room. "What are you going to tell Papa?" Mary ignored the question and instead started readying for bed. "You're not going to tell Papa?" she exclaimed.

"No." Mary's head snapped up. "And neither are you."

"Mary, I don't think-" Edith took a seat on Mary's bed and started again. "I think you're mistaken if you think she'll come around."

"I don't think she'll come around."

Edith's mouth fell open. "So you believe Sybil will actually go through with it? She'll marry the chauffeur and become- I don't know- _Mrs. Branson_?" she nearly spit. Mary said nothing. "Surely you can't support this?" Edith demanded, flabbergasted. "Surely _you_ can't support this?"

"Of course not! I don't agree with _any_ of Sybil's choices," Mary informed her with a frustrated sigh. "But I support and agree with her right to make those choices for herself. She should be able to choose her own life. God knows at least one of us should."

Edith knew Mary was thinking about Sybil (and herself of course, as Mary is always wont to do), but those last words, while not an apology, did seem to indicate the tiniest bit of regret that Edith would not get to choose her own life and even, possibly, regret that Mary had made sure of that in her revenge.

It was also possible, Edith realized, that tonight, after twenty-one years of being the odd one out, she and Mary had found something very significant in common.

* * *

><p>"A lot of commotion here tonight." The innkeeper's gravelly voice behind him, and a flood of dim light from a lamp, interrupted Tom's despairing.<p>

"Yes. I'm sorry about that." He wasn't sure what to say. "I hope it didn't cause too much disturbance."

The innkeeper made a sound Tom couldn't understand and shuffled over to where he sat on the sofa. _Alone, with just one suitcase_. "Off already?"

"Best to get an early start," Tom mumbled. "I was just taking some time to consider my route, but I'll be out of your way."

"Uh-huh. Safe journey then, Mr. Johnson." Tom stood up, picking up his suitcase. The innkeeper moved to unlock the door for him. "Johnson," he remarked. "Unusual name for an Irishman."

His tone told Tom not to bother lying again. "My name is Tom Branson."

"Uh-huh," the innkeeper nodded, sorting through the keys. "You're over twenty-one. What about her?"

"She's twenty-one. Had a birthday in August. It was legal."

_Was_. "Uh-huh."

"We had other reasons." _Feck_, that sounded like he was saying... _not that it matters, _but... why was he even having this conversation, _why the feck is it taking so long with the lock_? "Her family, I mean to say."

The keys fell to the floor with a clang and the innkeeper took forever picking them up, Tom shifting impatiently beside him. "Did you know there's a residency requirement?"

"_What_?"

"Three weeks residency to be married in Scotland."

"Since when?"

"Since as long as I've been running this inn, at least."

"No," he sighed. "We didn't know."

"You all read too many novels."

Tom realized this conversation was probably as rote as serving tea to the runaway couples who came to his inn. His was surely not the first aborted elopement, nor was he the first groom to lose his bride on the way across the border. And then the futility of this whole misadventure sunk in: "_three weeks residency to be married."_ Maybe knowing that they would have wound up back at Downton tomorrow unmarried, no matter what, shouldn't have changed anything, but it did.

The door finally unlatched, and the innkeeper sent him off with a paternal pat on the shoulder and a final piece of advice. "Go return the car."


	27. Chapter 27: Back Again 1918 Part II

_Thank you as always for the reviews!_

_Quick note, since it's been a topic of debate among S/B fans and this is a canon story: I don't think "until everything is settled" was a euphemism for "until we are married." In my canon, it was deliberately ambiguous ;)_

_And with that- enjoy part two!_

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><p>There was no chance of sleep that night. Sybil lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the events of the last whirlwind days colliding inside her mind like a train wreck, each one slamming into the next. And in the end was his face as she left and the gnawing, growing belief that she had made a terrible, terrible mistake.<p>

It wasn't what she had done, it was how she had done it. She should have taken him aside- or better yet, sent Mary and Edith back to the car- while she explained her rationale. She should have given him the opportunity to speak his mind to her. She had been hours away from pledging her_ life_ to him, but she switched sides in that room, left him standing there alone; she hadn't changed loyalties, but that's what it looked like. That wasn't forsaking all others. That wasn't how one honored the person one loved more than all others.

_You're not a girl anymore_, she chastised herself silently._ You're going to be his wife. You have to start thinking about _"us." Is that the standard she wants to set for their marriage? God have mercy on him if he ever dared to dismiss her, without discussion, without her consent, as she had done to him tonight.

_I couldn't blame him if he didn't come back._

No, he would come back, she told herself; his books, his papers were here. He would come back for them, if not her.

Too much adrenaline and too many hours without sleep sent her like shot to the window, straining to see through the night, to no avail. It had been hours since they arrived back, _surely he should be back by now-_ _if he decided to come back, that is_. But if so, he would want to be back before it was light, to return the car before anyone realized it was missing. And because the darkness favored boldness, for high-born daughters as well, she pulled on her skirt and a sweater over her nightdress and slipped quietly into the hall.

She passed her parents' bedroom; it was unbelievable to her that they slept on, knowing nothing of what had transpired tonight, that all three of their daughters had stolen two cars and been almost across the border. And tomorrow, they would all be sitting around the breakfast table, Papa asking if they slept well, having no idea it was supposed to be her wedding day.

The winter air smacked her awake as she hurried down the frozen lawn to the cottage, grateful to find the spare key was still under the rock. She opened the door and stepped out of her wet boots. It was only slightly less cold inside than out; she was surprised she couldn't see her breath. What she found in the front room filled her with immediate relief that didn't last. He had come back, but his suitcase had been haphazardly discarded- tossed down in disgust, likely. She went into his room and saw him passed out in bed, at the end of an unceremonious trail made of the suit he had been wearing tonight. His wedding suit. Rumpled and in pieces on the floor. _Every part of our failed nuptials thrown away_. She felt tears sting her eyes.

She bent down and picked up the pants, the vest, the shirt, folded them and draped them over the footboard. He didn't stir. She watched his face as she took down her skirt and laid it on top of his clothes. She decided she couldn't bear to lose the sweater yet, given the frigid temperature and the thin silk of her nightdress. She walked around the end of the bed and sat down in the same spot as she had last night, when he had formally asked her to marry him and she had finally said yes.

_Was it really just last night_?

She brushed back his hair with her hand, remembering that time in the snow when she couldn't. The year had been full of frustration, the feeling that things between them would never change, but oh, how things had changed since then! _And changing still..._ She ran her palm down his cheek and beyond, settling it on his bare shoulder. His skin was cold. It was freezing in here. With just a few hours to sleep, he hadn't bothered to light a fire. She wondered if he was wearing anything beneath the sheet, but her fingers faltered at the hem. It felt like cheating. She would find out soon enough.

She leaned down and kissed him. And then again. And then, without waking, he started to kiss back, wrapping his arms tightly around her, bringing her into him. The force and urgency he showed in this dream-state surprised her. Was he dreaming about her? Or was this the somnambular memory of another lover? Either way, it was not _her _and she felt the illicit thrill of being someone else in his embrace- not Lady Sybil Crawley, who lived above him and under lock and key, who needed to be carefully handled like some Lord's priceless possession. No, he was kissing her like she belonged to him, wholly. And she knew he wasn't just kissing her, he was making love to her- in his mind anyway, at least for the moment- her cheek falling next to his against the pillow, one arm locked around her shoulders and another around her waist. Her free hand came to rest on his ribs- there was no where else for it to go, really- her fingers alighting the bones as the kiss intensified... and possibly it was the chill of that contact that caused him to wake up.

Groggy from deadened sleep, it took him a few disoriented blinks to discern she was physically present; and then he had no idea how she had come to be half-clothed in his bed. He sat up skittish, disentangling from her. "Sybil, what-"

"Don't worry," she hushed him. "Everyone's asleep. No one knows I'm here."

He was just aware enough to deduce, to his infinite relief, that nothing irreversible had happened. _Yet. Jesus Christ. What was she doing_? "They'll be waking soon," he said, voice hoarse. "It's almost dawn."

She looked at him, eyes bright through the darkness, equal parts devastation and determination. That look did nothing to stay his blood, nor did her pushing into his arms, skin and silk coming flush with him, her breath on his neck, words falling from her lips. "You have to know that I meant what I said. I will be true to you."

"I know," he sighed. And he did. His internal tantrum at the inn, all his imagined threats of not coming back were nothing against the feel of his hands in her hair. "I believe you."

"I don't want you to have doubts." She lifted her head to look at him. "I don't want you to doubt me."

"I don't." He held her gaze long enough to let the words sink in, before kissing her softly. "You're here, aren't you?" And then he kissed her again- deeply, passionately- taking back the tiniest bit of all that had been lost to them tonight. He felt her struggle a bit in his arms and realized she was shrugging off her sweater. His hands moved reflexively to her shoulders, shielding them from the cold. _We should stop, we should stop_, he thought, but not yet, not just yet, this was almost a salve, this was how they were meant to be- without fear or anyone else. It hadn't been like that at all since they'd left for Scotland.

She reached up and took one of his hands and before he knew it, had moved it to unsheathe her shoulder. He was momentarily frozen as she assured him, "It's alright, I want to." She followed his eyes down to where the strap of her nightdress lay limp in the crook of her arm. "Go on," she urged softly. "I want you to."

It took her leaning into kiss him once more- the revelation that movement afforded him- to reanimate him. "No, no, no, not like this," he said, restoring the errant strap and some modesty. "Not here. Not in a dirty room with water stains on the wall, where you're shivering from the cold." He reached for her sweater, draping it around her shoulders. "Put this back on. You're freezing."

She made no effort to cooperate. "I don't care about that."

"I do," he told her, but she remained unmoved. "There's so much I can't give you, so much I'll never be able to give you, but I can give you better than this." He tipped her chin up to look at him, thinking he might have more success with a question. "If you'll let me. Will you let me?"

"The way you looked at me as I left..." She swallowed hard. "Is there a better way to show you that I don't want to go back, that I don't ever want to go back?"

"Yes," he smiled. "You can tell your parents you want to marry me and then you can do it." He kissed her forehead, cradled her head onto his shoulder. "And then, someday, sweetheart, when we are in a place of our own and we have all the time in the world..."

"I'm sorry for how I treated you tonight. It was wrong. I was wrong." She held on tighter. "I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

"Do you think _I'm_ so weak that I'd be scared off by your sisters?" he teased.

"We both underestimated each other," she said, rubbing at her eyes. "Not anymore."

"No, not anymore," he murmured. "Have you slept at all?"

"Don't worry about me. I don't have to work tomorrow."

"So that's a no, then? How about," he began, settling them back against the pillow, "you close your eyes for a few minutes and then I'll walk you back up to the house."

She looked up at him from his shoulder. "Tell me about the boat to Ireland. Howth, the first thing I'll see." He started to speak, but she silenced him with her fingertips. "In your other language."

"You liked that, did you?"

"Will you teach me how to speak a bit, when we get there?"

"_Ar ndoigh_- of course," he answered.

Her fingers were still playing about his mouth. "I know all the reasons why we're not, but I want to. I've thought about it."

"Me too. And me too."

"It's funny," she mused. "I was so offended by the presumption at the inn. But then I didn't know if you would come back, and then you were here and we were kissing and I didn't care if the whole world knew. I only cared about you. Love is truly sort of mad, isn't it?"

"Indeed," he chuckled in agreement.

"But we'll wait," she sighed. "We'll wait. Even if it kills us." He didn't laugh this time; his face was troubled. "What is it?"

"I was thinking in the car- I told you I would make something of myself, but I've not done so."

"You had a good reason for staying where you are, if I may say so. And I don't doubt you will."

"I can't tell your father that I plan to take you away to foreign country with no job and no home. No father in his right mind would send his daughter off with a vagrant."

"That's a bit dramatic." She looked at him tentatively. "I don't want you to get your hopes up. I doubt he'll approve no matter what you do."

"It's not so much about him," he replied, being careful about how he conveyed this particular sentiment. "I want to do right by _you_. I'll secure employment- I can find a job that pays a wage, even if it's not at a paper or political work, I don't have to keep it forever. But it will be respectable enough to tell him."

"Alright."

"And then we'll go."

"And we'll be on the boat west and the first thing we'll see is Howth." She laid her cheek against his chest, thinking about how, for the first time, it felt real- the smell of soap that was not her own, the pace of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest, how well they fit together, even in this little bed. Talking kept him awake and he had to think just enough to arrange the words in Irish, but he could see it, see his homeland as he stroked her hair and stared off into the future.

No more than twenty minutes later, he brushed his hand over her cheek to wake her. She rose off him and collected her skirt; he rose, facing the opposite wall but not really making any attempt at decorum, and got dressed.

Hand-in-hand, they walked back up the lawn. "It might be hard for me to get away, I think, at least for a little bit," she said as they were coming up on the willow tree, the farthest they would dare together, and he squeezed her hand a little tighter. They stood there for a moment, in the pre-dawn still looking up at the muted light of the forthcoming sun framing the big grand house. "It would have made a nice wedding day," she remarked.

"Right," he said, recalling his last conversation at the inn with a low laugh. "About that..."

* * *

><p><em>... and thus concludes the angst portion of our story.<em>


	28. Chapter 28: Early December 1918

_Thank you as always for the reviews- I appreciate it so much!_

_(Just a reminder that I'm departing from the show timeline for the winter- the war ended in November, it's now December and everything is back to normal. We'll pick up with the show timeline in April when S/B announce their engagement. As for the Irish vote/residency questions- stay tuned.)_

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><p><strong>Early December 1918<strong>

Mary and Edith never saw eye-to-eye on anything, but they both agreed Sybil had become impossible.

It was two weeks after the failed elopement, two weeks since they had spoken, and (though her sisters didn't know this) two weeks after that mystical early-morning visit to the cottage when, like in Homer, that one night had seemingly stretched on, with soap-smells and fallen sleeves filling in all the lost months-_ years_- so that when they finally rejoined the world, it was as if they had been engaged forever. It filled her with unspeakable joy and endless things to think on; every moment sent her wondering what this moment would be like with him, in their house: having breakfast or what photographs they would have and where they would hang them, how big would the closet be and would they share it, _what about a gramaphone, it would be wonderful to have one of those._ But it also made the forced separation unbearable. Mary and Edith were watching her like a hawk, the house was a private residence again (_mausoleum is more like it_, Sybil thought) and the stasis meant she could no longer slip out unnoticed.

Sybil was bored; bored and lovesick, an affliction that made her moody and restless. She longed for him and the future and every hour that ticked by filled her with new anxieties about what would happen next. The vote in Ireland was coming up and she had no idea what he was planning to do. She wanted him to go, of course; that's what she had told him before Scotland and that's what she meant, although selfishly _of course_ she didn't want him to leave England and leave her and make communication between them even more difficult than it was now.

Mostly though, she just wanted to _talk_ to him, but that had, for the past two weeks, proved impossible. As a result, she was taking it out on her family, stirring up trouble and being an awful brat.

"Remind me why we stopped her from leaving," Mary muttered to Edith one night, after Sybil had caused quite a scene at dinner, badgering Mama and Granny through two courses for not registering to vote in the upcoming election, as they were now allowed to do. "Then give me your ballots and vote as a proxy," Sybil had demanded. "I should love to have a vote, but I'm not allowed."

"That would be election fraud, would it not?" Papa challenged, though it was clear he had lost patience with the topic. "Two ballots cast for one person who isn't even allowed a vote."

"Well, Papa, since you've raised the _fundamental_ issue," Sybil started in, lowering her fork and causing everyone at the table to groan inwardly, knowing a lecture was forthcoming. "Why is it fine to ask and take what women can give- service and sacrifice of every kind- in the war, but deny them the right to participate in the guidance of the nation?"

"Have you met many of the women of this nation?" Violet countered, with an incredulous laugh. "It is more than fine. One might even say it is necessary."

Sybil ignored her and pressed on. "Is it right to make women partners in the country's suffering and sacrifice, but not in privilege and right?" Throats were cleared, chairs were shifted, silverware clinked on plates, but no one spoke to object. "You honestly believe it _is_ right?" she uttered, aghast. "All of you?" She cast an indicting look at Mary and Edith who did not think it was right, but had no desire to join Sybil's rhetorical crusade, which they both knew was at least partially (and ironically) born out of missing Branson and her own romantic frustration.

"Sybil, that's quite enough," Robert chastised her. "No more politics at the table." He readjusted himself, regaining his composure. "Though I admit, your words were well-said."

"Well, I should hope so," Sybil chortled, after taking a noticeably large gulp of wine. "They're Woodrow Wilson's."

That was Sybil's last contribution to the dinner conversation.

For the rest of the night, she sat silently, stewing in frustration. It infuriated her that she had been cast back into a life of idleness, but more than that, it infuriated her that no one _seemed to mind. _No one seemed to think it was strange at all that a young woman- who had proved to be perfectly capable of working hard and long hours, of contributing her talents and energies, of getting up to her elbows in blood without flinching- should now pretend none of that had ever happened and go back to ribbons and beaus.

_Papa is the worst offender_, she thought sullenly on the sofa after dinner. Granny was Granny and she was old, no one expected her to change. But Papa was a living anachronism. She wondered if he was putting on or if he truly did believe that _nothing_, including his daughters, had been changed by the war. Every time he voiced some nonsense like "_Not in front of the women_" or "_That would give the ladies quite a shock,_" she imagined reciting for him the half-dozen words she knew to describe the male anatomy (including one in French and come to think of it, Tom could probably teach her a seventh in Gaelic), or perhaps recounting, to his horror, the scene in the chauffeur's cottage, in Tom's bed, what she had wanted and had asked him to do. _Everything as it was, indeed._

Of course, she did not say anything to her father. But she did the next best thing, which was to retreat into her mind, free of stupid thoughts and full of dreams and desires. So another night went by with everyone sitting in the parlor sipping cognac and talking of nothing, with no one knowing why she was so quiet and had the silliest, faraway look on her face.

* * *

><p>But Sybil had not spent the last two weeks bemoaning the separation and doing nothing about it. No, she been carefully laying the groundwork for a plot to see Tom alone, away from Downton. She had started dropping comments about wanting to take up painting, now that she was no longer working and had an abundance of free time. Today, she mentioned at tea that the library in Ripon had travelling exhibit for the upcoming holidays and <em>how perfect<em>, she could stop in and see it on her way to buy some watercolors and brushes at the art store. As no one in her family had any interest whatsoever in art, she thought it an ideal excuse.

Except that Mama had smiled broadly and said, "We should all go!" And the expression on Sybil's face confirmed to Edith that a drive to Ripon had nothing to do with art; her sister looked dangerously close to throwing her teacup through the window.

She didn't, of course, but went back to pretending to read a novel, though Mary and Edith knew she was sulking and more likely, plotting. A few angry minutes passed and Sybil suddenly shut the book with a snap and stood up. "I'm feeling a little flushed. I think I'll take a walk and get some air," she declared.

"Oh dear," Cora responded, concerned (she was the only person in the room who didn't know where Sybil was going). "Are you unwell?"

"Perhaps I should walk with you?" Mary offered. The warning in her words was understood by everyone except Mama. "In case you're taken ill?"

Sybil scowled at her. "I'm sure I can manage," she replied crisply, issuing her own warning to her sisters not to try and interfere. It was a strange bluffing game the three of them were playing; normally, the threat that Edith and Mary would tell their parents was enough to keep Sybil in line, but when she was really worked up, as she clearly was now, they feared she would welcome being thrown out of the house.

After a confirming glance at Edith, Mary decided to hold her tongue and Sybil darted out of the room, with a pink in her cheeks that was definitely not the result of a fever, at least not the viral kind.

Her mood was instantly improved, heading down the lawn in the gray afternoon light. She was just so happy to have escaped the silent deadliness of the parlor and walk where she pleased- and she was _very_ pleased to be walking to the garage. She was almost able to pretend she was working again, especially when she caught sight of her former colleague out back taking a break.

"Thomas!" Upon hearing Lady Sybil's voice, the former footman moved hastily to stamp out his cigarette. "Oh, good grief, Thomas," Sybil said, coming up towards him with a smile, "please don't do that on my account."

"Thank you, milady." She gave him a look. "I don't suppose you still want me to call you Nurse Crawley?" he laughed.

"No. All that's quite over now," she rued. He pulled out another cigarette with an expectant look; now it was her turn to laugh. "That's quite over with as well. But thank you."

They made small talk, as they used to at the hospital. They had taken many breaks together, a routine that began when they had both been ordered to_ just g__et on with it_ after Lt. Courtenay's suicide. That instruction had proven easier given than taken, but in the following weeks, in five-minute increments out back by the brick wall, they had worked out their shared feelings: anger over Dr. Clarkson's idiocy and the loss of life that could have been prevented, if only he had listened to them; their own guilt that they had not done more; the insomnia that kept them both awake in the immediate aftermath. Thomas never spoke of the grief that was his alone, though Sybil was aware of it; if he had, he would have found an empathetic confidante, as she was acutely aware that one cannot help who one loves.

And there had been the day, around the time she learned Tom had been called up, when the morning shift had been especially gruesome- an amputation gone wrong and another life lost- and several of the staff had stepped out for air at the same time and she had started shaking. Thomas had noticed immediately, put his hand on her arm and guided her around the corner, out of view of the others. "Breathe and count to ten," he directed her. "And again." Two more times and it passed. She thanked him. He never asked_ what_ and she never said, and they never spoke of it again.

God, as horrible as the war had been, she _missed_ it- the hospital, the staff, the camaraderie, the fact that the work, her days and the conversations that filled them up were_ of_ _consequence._ Life _mattered_. She and Thomas had tried to save a blinded soldier from himself, had failed, had relied on each other to get through it. But now they were expected to return to their respective stations in _the real world_ where he was expected to devote himself to serving her kind and she should not deign to see his.

Sybil looked sideways at Thomas, as he took a long drag. He appeared as unhappy as she was. "Can I ask you something? Do you miss it, working at the hospital? And is that wrong?"

"Yes," he admitted. "I do miss it. But what do you mean about wrong?"

"We don't really do the sort of work one should miss," she explained. "In an ideal word, the work we do would be eliminated entirely."

He smiled at her. He admired her optimism; he didn't like it in others, but he felt she had earned it because he had seen firsthand that she was tough, she wasn't afraid to work and she wasn't afraid to fight. "It's pretty great you can still talk about an ideal world, after all we've seen."

She looked off into the distance. "It's what we've seen that makes me certain there has to be a world better than this one."

"I hope so, Nurse Crawley," he responded, looking down at the gravel. "I certainly hope so."

She touched his arm. "It's easier to sleep now though, isn't it?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "It is."

Just then, O'Brien stepped out the back door and started, her face contorting into an ugly expression upon being confronted with Lady Sybil's presence in the servants' space. "I have to go," Sybil said. "It was nice to see you, Thomas."

O'Brien walked over to Thomas, her eyes still trained on Sybil, who she noted was heading away from the house. "You got one for me?" He obliged, pulling out another cigarette. "What's she doing here?"

"Nothing," he replied. "Just saying hello, that's all."

"Interrupting your break! Like they don't get enough of our lives as it is," O'Brien ranted. "She doesn't have the sense to think that maybe we'd want a minute's peace- _alone_- before we go back to slaving away for her and her family."

"I didn't mind. We worked together near every day at the hospital." Thomas shrugged. "It was different."

"Oh, it's _different_, is it?" O'Brien scoffed. "Different my eye. If it was so different, why doesn't she invite _you_ in for tea instead of standing out by the compost in the cold to say hello? A right Marie Antoinette, that one. Next she'll be wanting to clean the chamber pots!"

"Lay off," Thomas said, stamping out a butt. "I like her."

* * *

><p>Sybil was heartened by her brief chat with Thomas and it filled her with ideas and questions about working in Ireland, starting with how she should document her work in England (for obvious reasons, she could not ask Dr. Clarkson to post references for her to hospitals in Dublin). She figured Tom would have some insight, as he was in the process of his own job search. She came up on the garage and her heart sped up seeing him- sleeves rolled up, hands on his hips- standing in front of the motor. <em>I'll ask him right after I pull him behind the car and...<em>

She stopped abruptly, as Tom stepped to one side and revealed Pratt, the other driver, bent over the engine doing something rather ineptly at Tom's direction. She could tell from his voice that he was struggling to keep calm. She knew how _that _felt.

She must have expressed her displeasure vocally because Tom whipped around to face her. For a brief second, she saw her own feelings mirrored in his eyes- love, frustration, a desire to kill Pratt- before he assumed the part of the chauffeur. "Good afternoon, milady." Hearing that word from his mouth, and in that vacantly cheerful, obsequious tone of servitude, made her sick inside. Pratt turned and echoed the greeting.

"Good afternoon." She tried hard not to sound defeated. "I just came to see if Papa has ordered the car for tomorrow," she lied, as Tom stepped towards her, out of view of Pratt. "I can't find him to ask and Mama is thinking of going into Ripon."

"No, there's nothing on the schedule for tomorrow." The intensity of his eyes, the way he was looking at her, that rolling voice that always talked to her of such interesting things... she wanted to go to him so much it physically hurt and she could see how much he wanted that as well.

"Well... thank you," she replied, searching for any reason to prolong the conversation or communicate a plan for a future one. "I will come and confirm our plans with you later," she proposed hopefully.

"Alright, milady. I'll be here with Pratt working on the motor until I have to fetch the Dowager Countess," he answered with great regret.

"I see." She locked eyes with him, _give me something, anything_...

But then Pratt was there beside Tom, because it would have been entirely improper not give her his full attention. He was, after all, _her servant_, although she had no idea _why_ this grown man ought to be serving her. Did he not have things he wished to do with his own life besides attend to the wishes of a spoiled young woman he didn't know, so she could sit around in leisure all day? "Milady," he apologized.

She hated abusing her power, but she had to get rid of Pratt so they could have at least a moment alone together. "Pratt, would you mind seeing if Lady Edith left her shawl in the motor?" He nodded and did as she told him to do.

"That look in your eye," Tom said, with a sigh of relief and a low chuckle. "I wasn't sure what was going to come out of your mouth."

"Don't ever address me as '_my lady'_ again," she told him sharply. "_Ever_."

He definitely hadn't expected her to say that. "What?"

"You are never to call me that. Not ever."

"Well, that won't give away anything," he countered facetiously. "What should I call you then, in front of Pratt and your family? Or in front of your father?"

"You're never at a loss for words, you'll figure it out. You could not address me at all," she responded. "But I do not ever want to hear those words from _your_ mouth to me, do you understand?"

"Is that an order?" He couldn't help being a little amused at the irony.

"I can pretend there is no 'us,'" she told him. "I won't pretend that you're less than me or that you have no right to speak my name."

Tom thought she could not have been more perfect if she had jumped out of his dreams. He wanted to throw his arms around her and kiss her, but he could hear Pratt already coming back behind him. "I'm sorry, milady, but it's not there."

"Thank you for checking. I'll leave you to the engine."

"Milady," Pratt said.

Tom only nodded and said nothing, a smile curling his lips.

* * *

><p>It was just Mary and Edith in the parlor when Sybil returned, much sooner than any of them expected. "Feeling better?" Mary inquired mildly. Sybil shot her a death stare. She flopped down onto the sofa next to Edith, who was admittedly finding a kind of perverse enjoyment in the friction between Mary and Sybil; it was a nice break from being the lone target of Mary's verbal knives.<p>

The clock ticked and Sybil picked up and tossed down a book, crossed and uncrossed her ankles, fussed with her sleeve- all punctuated with heavy, irascible sighs- before finally announcing, "This is a ridiculous way to live! Perfectly capable people sitting around doing nothing," and storming out of the room and up the stairs.

* * *

><p>Later that night, it was as it had been for the last two weeks, just the two of them in Mary's room before dinner. "Where is Sybil?" Mary asked, pulling on her gloves.<p>

Edith rolled her eyes. "Probably locked in her room reading William Yeats or something."

"Oh good God," Mary muttered. "She better not be late- Papa will have a fit. And I hope she's prepared to make polite conversation. Granny was none to pleased about the inquisition the other night at dinner."

"You can't talk to her at all anymore," Edith complained. "She's never listening. Half the time she's just staring off into space."

"Or the slums of Dublin." Mary stood up to leave. "I wonder if, in this imagined life of hers, she envisions the rats and bread lines along with all the love and freedom." Edith snickered. "It's not a joke," Mary told her. "I am truly curious to know what exactly Sybil thinks her life will be like, with no money, an ocean away from home."

"I don't know that Yeats ever wrote about that," Edith responded glibly, as they went to procure their sister. They found her dressed, staring out her window, one hand to the glass.

"Sybil, are you ready to go down?" Mary asked.

"Not yet," she answered without turning around. Mary and Edith stepped further into the room, close enough to see out the window down to the driveway, where Granny was being helped out of the car.

"Papa will be very cross with us if we're late," Edith cautioned.

"Then go without me," Sybil snapped, but they both heard the catch in her voice.

Then, to Edith's great surprise, Mary stepped to Sybil and put a hand on her shoulder, touching her head to hers. "It's alright, we'll wait." Edith stood behind them and watched as their grandmother disappeared into the house and Branson went back around to the driver's seat, opened the door and hopped in, but not before casting a fleeting, expressionless glance upward. The car drove away. "Ready?" Mary urged softly.

Sybil nodded. "I'm sorry," Edith heard her whisper to Mary. "It's just hard sometimes."

"I know."

"I know you do."

Edith watched as Sybil squeezed Mary's hand, an unspoken exchange that she did not understand; it was _their_ world and she did not speak the language. That's how it had always been and likely how it always would be, despite the current tension over Branson. They even looked the same, truly like sisters, and not just because they both shared their mother's dark hair. It was their mannerisms and expressions too, but that was no surprise. When they were children, Sybil had followed Mary like a shadow, transfixed by the ethereal eldest, wanting to be like her, fully self-possessed and seeming never to mis-step. _If Sybil only knew__, _Edith thought_, how badly Mary has blundered, tripped by her own vanity and the illusion that she was invincible._

And Edith hatched a plan of her own._  
><em>


	29. Chapter 29: December 1918

Thank you as always for the reviews! This is just a silly chapter- up next, it's Christmas!

A/N: There were a lot of shenanigans in the Irish election that brought Sinn Fein to power.

* * *

><p>"Oh Edith!" Sybil cried, throwing her arms around her and almost knocking her onto the grass. "I love you!"<p>

No one in the family (or anyone outside, for that matter) ever said that to Edith; in fact the warmest compliment she had received in a very long time was being told she was nicer than before the war (and that had actually been delivered as more of a constructive criticism than a compliment). So for the sake of her own pride, she tried to appear annoyed, gently pushing off her sister. "Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't mean it," Edith laughed. "You're only saying it because I'm giving you what you want."

"That's only partially true," Sybil admitted, releasing her as they continued down the path.

"Do you know _why_ I'm doing it?"

"Because you're my sister?" Sybil guessed. Edith shook her head. "Then it must be because you're a terrible romantic. Which you are you know," she added. "Much more than Mary or me."

"What would make you think _that_?" Edith responded, flustered. Sybil pointed out that she wasn't denying it. "I'll remind you," Edith countered, lowering her voice, "that I am the only Crawley sister who is not engaged."

Sybil waved her hand. "Oh, that's just happenstance."

"_Happenstance?_"

"Yes," Sybil insisted. "We all have to find our own unique talent and our place in the world, but they do exist, to be sure, and so does love."

_Maybe for you, dear sister_. Edith liked her younger sister- she had a good heart, a good sense of humor, was easy to get along with. But there were times when she found Sybil to be insufferable, like now with that self-assured statement- _why, of course, love and talent and belonging for all of us! _It was, no doubt, admirably optimistic, but it would perhaps be more admirable if Sybil hadn't been born into the prized role of the family baby, attention-demanding and adorable, a role for which she had been perfectly cast. She had never spent agonizing nights standing in a ballroom hoping someone would talk to her or ask her to dance (knowing that everyone around was whispering that no one would), she had never felt the humiliation of being passed over for someone else or worse, for _no one_ else. Sybil never had to _look_ for love; why, there was a man eager to be a lifetime audience for her act right here at home. And as luck would have it- as _Sybil's_ luck would have it- he was (a chauffeur yes, but) one of the last remaining strong, young, and able-bodied men Britain. _Sybil is optimistic, but that's because she wouldn't know rejection if she tripped over it._

"Will he carry a glass slipper so I'll know I'm just the one for him?" Edith knew she must have sounded bitter, but she didn't care. "Honestly, sometimes you talk like you're still in the nursery, that old picture book of fairy stories on your lap."

"You mock me, but everyone around here thinks I'm daft with my pants and my politics and actually _liking_ to work," Sybil said with uncharacteristic sharpness in her voice. "They love me in spite of it. But do you know, there is someone who loves me because of it."

"And you accuse me of being a romantic!" Edith retorted lightly, although Sybil's assessment had upset her equilibrium; she had never considered that her sister could ever feel like _she_ didn't belong.

"You'd quite like to be taken out on the water and read poetry to on a summer afternoon, wouldn't you?"

"Well, who wouldn't want that?" Edith answered because, well, _who wouldn't want that?_

"Can you imagine Sir Richard in a rowboat reciting _poetry_?"

The sisters exchanged a wicked look. "_And s__ummer's lease hath all too short a date... __Mary_," Edith aped in baritone, as they both collapsed into giggles.

"I can imagine it," Sybil started, catching her breath. "About as much as I can imagine Mary batting her eyelashes at him from underneath a parasol."

Edith glanced over at her still-laughing sister. "What about Branson?" she inquired as if she did not really want to know, although she did. "Is he the sort to read poetry on the water to you?"

"Tom read poetry on the water? Oh, no, no, I don't think so." Sybil thought that image was quite comical; Edith thought it was remarkably odd to hear Branson's Christian name roll off her sister's tongue with such familiarity and ease. "He might take me to a strike rally on the docks," she considered thoughtfully. To Edith's horrified expression, Sybil only shrugged and smiled. "It's romantic in its own way."

"You _are_ daft," Edith concluded.

They walked for a minute in companionable silence through the milky December afternoon, which made Edith realize how rarely she ever took walks with anyone. She loved to roam the grounds, take a book to the old ruins in the back of the estate, but it was almost always alone. She never spent time with Mary and although she occasionally happened to collide with Sybil's swirl of activity in the house, they didn't usually set out to spend time together. Of course, that made sense, now that Edith knew with whom Sybil had been spending her free time.

"So why_ are _you doing this?" Sybil wanted to know. "Not that I'm not incredibly grateful," she added quickly, "but I am curious."

There were two truths: the one Edith planned to tell Sybil and the other one. "You're a nurse," Edith began, "think of it as an inoculation. Sometimes a little bit of disease proves to be cure." That was true. But the other reason- the main reason- was for herself. She had been fascinated by the glimpse into their secret world at the inn- it had been a total shock to her, unlike Mary. _Was Sybil really in love with their driver_? She wanted to know. She frankly wanted to _see_.

"An inoculation?" Sybil frowned, her defenses flaring. "Well, I'll not argue with it, but if you think spending an afternoon with Tom will cure me of him, you will be disappointed."

"Frankly, we're just glad to be rid of you for a few hours," Edith parried with attitude of her own. "You've been absolutely horrid you know, since we brought you back."

"I know," Sybil acknowledged sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

"And I _don't_ want to find myself chasing you around England again any time soon."

"Yes, Miss." Sybil assumed her fake contrition tone, the one that had allowed her to wiggle out of countless wrongdoings when they were children: "_Yes, Miss, trying to dye Edith's hair brown with mud was very naughty and unladylike_."

"Oh, you are_ such_ a brat," Edith marveled to which Sybil just grinned.

They were just about a hundred yards from the garage and it did not escape Edith's notice that Sybil's steps were quickening. _It must be nice to have someone to sneak off to_. Her sister gave a little discreet wave when Branson walked out from the back and he started upon seeing them.

_Don't look at her, don't look at her. _"Milady!" He turned an uneasy glance at Edith, willing himself _not_ to look at Sybil, although it appeared it was just the two of them. "I thought we were to leave in a half-hour. I apologize. I'll bring the car around for Her Ladyship immediately."

"She's not coming," Sybil informed him, thrilled. "It's just us this afternoon!"

"Hello, Branson," Edith greeted him lukewarmly. It was the first time Tom had been alone with the sisters since the night they had all been together at the inn and to call it awkward would have been a massive understatement.

But Sybil seemed impervious to the tension, bestowing him with a besotted smile, hands clasped behind her as if she were actually holding them back. "Hello." Before he could answer, Edith opened the car door and with a pointed look, ordered Sybil to get in. They climbed in the back and he hopped in the front and then she was leaning next to him, close enough that her hair brushed against his cheek. "Hello again."

"Hello yourself." _If your sister weren't sitting an arm's length away..._

"Oh, just kiss him and get it over with!" Edith said with an exasperated sigh, then added in a warning tone, "Don't make me reget this, Sybil."

"I won't, I promise," she murmured and Tom could feel her smiling as she whispered into his ear, "I think it would work better if you looked at me." The desire to kiss her had been losing out to the mortification of having to do it in front of her sister, but _that_ changed the equation; he turned, allowing Sybil to place a fluttering kiss on his lips, as Edith pretended not to look.

"That's quite enough of that for the afternoon," Edith ordered, tugging Sybil back by the coat. "Now sit." Edith guided her sister to the seat opposite her, directly behind Branson. "I'm giving you an hour by yourselves. I don't want to have to watch the two of you make eyes at each other for the entire drive as well."

Sybil obeyed and explained to Tom how Edith had finagled the afternoon alone, selling Mama on the importance of a sisters-only day out, and how Edith would go to the art store and pick up the things Sybil claimed she wanted and they could do what they pleased. "Wasn't that just wonderful of Edith?" Sybil gushed with a happy sigh.

Tom wasn't sure how to respond, given that Lady Edith was mostly glaring at him and she certainly was not doing this to be wonderful to _him_. But the older Crawley took command of the silence. "So Branson, have you seen the new 1919 Renaults?" And once that topic of conversation was opened up, there was neither silence nor another word from Sybil the entire way to Ripon.

* * *

><p>Branson turned the motor down a winding side street, out of view of the prying eyes of the townsfolk on the main thoroughfare, and pulled to a stop adjacent to a small park. All three disembarked and formed a triangular confab on the sidewalk with Edith at the head and Sybil pressed next to Branson, who Edith conceded had the decency to look appropriately embarrassed about the whole affair.<p>

"I am going to the art store and then to the library to see the traveling exhibit so at least one of us will know what we're talking about when Mama asks about it at dinner. I will be back in one hour," she dictated sternly. "Do _not_ be late. And for God's sake, don't let anyone see you."

Branson (now gloveless and hatless) tipped his head to her, clearly having no idea what else to do. _God, what _is_ the proper response when a driver is dismissed by a lady to woo her little sister?_ Edith wondered_. This whole situation is mad._

"We won't!" Sybil called merrily as they turned in the opposite direction. "Thank you, Edith!"

Edith watched her sister reach for the chauffeur's hand as they headed through the black gates of the park. Branson's uniform made them look ridiculously mismatched- although, it occurred to Edith, if Sybil were in her nurse's uniform, they would have made a striking couple. But, the sartorial aside, Sybil could not have looked prouder or more pleased if she were being escorted by the King himself. Edith sighed and turned towards town.

* * *

><p>They had barely stepped through the gates of the park, nearly empty on this dreary December day, when Sybil turned to Tom, exclaiming, "I have so much I want to talk about-"<p>

"Me too, " he interjected.

"-but I might break with you if you don't kiss me properly _right now._"

"Well, we can't have that," he chuckled, stealing her over to a bench partially hidden by a cluster of trees. There was still snow on the branches from a storm a few days ago, but it had been clear today and the wood on the bench was dry and then- at last!- they were kissing and he was apologizing for his hands, which kept wanting to move to her hair. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to muss it up. I'm just remembering how it was at the cottage- God, I loved that."

"Yes, it was better at the cottage," she agreed, eyeing a top-hatted stroller as he passed and waiting to finish until he did so, "where we didn't have to worry about anyone seeing us."

"We should be more mindful, much as I hate to say it," he rued. "We don't want any of your family's friends seeing us in this park."

She shook her head with a guilty laugh. "Tom, our family friends have their own acreages- they don't frequent town parks. At least not the unlocked ones."

"Huh." He sat back. "In all the years we've known each other, I've never thought about how rich you are. I mean, I _know_, but I never think of you as being that. It's unbelievable really."

"Thank you, I suppose," she said, embarrassed. "You'll like to know that much of my family's wealth comes from my mother's family. My grandfather started with nothing in the middle of America, opened a store and grew it into an empire."

Tom was surprised. "Is that so? I wouldn't have thought- I just assumed your mother was from Boston or New York."

"She's from Ohio!" Sybil told him laughing. "I didn't know my grandfather- he died before my parents were married. I remember packages coming in the post for my sisters and I with peppermint sticks and soaps and little trinkets, wrapped in brown paper with the outline of the store stenciled on it and Mama would put me on her lap and tell me about going there after school and how the shopkeeper would slip her candy. It was that old shopkeeper who sent us those packages. My American grandmother feels no attachment to the store. The money, yes. The store, no." She paused for a moment. "I do wonder what my mother thinks of her old life, if she misses it ever. She grew up so differently than we did."

"It does help explain you though," Tom posited, engendering a look of curiosity from Sybil. "Change is in your blood." He took her hand, looking uncharacteristically unsure. "Perhaps a man who took a self-made American as his wife might be willing to accept an Irishman who means to make something of himself for his daughter."

"You _will_ make something of yourself."

"I'm trying," he sighed. "I sent the deputy editor the samples he asked for. Now, it's just a matter of waiting for his answer."

"I want this so much for you. You'd be so good as a journalist and I think you would love it."

He nodded. "I think so too. But I also sent out some inquiries about mechanical work. It's good to have a back-up."

"But you mustn't get discouraged if this lead doesn't come through. There are other papers."

He squeezed her hand in gratitude and she knew she had to broach the subject that had been the source of most of her anxiety as they entered December. "I think you should go to Ireland," she blurted out. She pressed on, ignoring his entirely puzzled expression. "I think you should hand in your notice and go and vote. There I've said it."

"Sybil-"

"I mean it. At least, I think I do- well, I'm _trying_ to-"

"Sybil-"

"- because it's something that we believe in and it _matters_, and so even though I'll miss you terribly-"

"Sybil!" He caught her hands, which had been gesticulating wildly in concert with her monologue. "I'm not going to Ireland."

"But what about the vote?" she demanded, fairly indicting him with her tone. _Good Lord, Sybil- j__'accuse_.

"The vote will go on and the good people of Ireland will elect someone without my input, just as they have in every election in the last five years." She seemed wholly unsatisfied by that answer. "Besides, I have a suspicion I'll be voting whether I go back to Ireland or not."

Her face clouded with confusion. "I don't understand."

"I wrote to my brother, who's been working on the election since graduated from university last spring, to ask what the residency requirement is. And he wrote back, 'Don't worry, your precinct knows you.'"

"What does _that_ mean?"

"It means I'm pretty sure Tom Branson is already registered to vote, though he didn't register and he's not a resident and he hasn't been for some years now."

"Oh." The acidity in his voice told her to proceed with caution. "What do you think about that?"

"I don't like it," Tom responded, trying to shrug it off, although it was clear he was bothered by it. "After the war, after all that's happened, with the new voting laws- I don't see _why_ they would do it. But I can't be too upset by it. There's nothing legitimate about English rule of Ireland, so illegitimate Irish rule of Ireland is still preferable to that."

"I'm sorry," Sybil told him. "I know how important this election is."

"I'm not sorry at all not to have to leave you," he assured her. "When I go back to Ireland, it will be for us. And there will other elections."

His words quickened the most vivid scene in her mind- she actually could see it; it heartened her and she thought it might hearten him. "The next election, we'll wake up in our bedroom and we'll get dressed in very smart clothes, and we'll have a little breakfast in our kitchen, drinking tea and reading the morning edition for any last-minute news," she imagined. "And we'll walk to the polling place together and we'll be made terribly indignant by all the people who don't know who's on the ballot, who don't know it's election day, who can't be _bothered_ to vote."

He broke into a grin. "I can't bear people like that."

"Me either."

"I'll turn to you," he picked up, playing along, "and say it's a travesty that so many fools are allowed to vote, but an intelligent, well-informed woman like yourself is not."

"And I'll say nothing to that, because that was quite perfectly said." He loved the expression of wonder on her face as she spoke and even though she had never set foot in Dublin, he was sure she was actually looking at it now. "But we'll be full of anticipation and excitement, walking past all the people who shake their heads, saying nothing will _ever_ change because nothing ever does and the future will be more of the same. And I'll turn to you-" she now did as she said- "and I'll say, they can't see what's right in front of them. Look at us. _We_ are the proof that the world can change and it will do."

"And I," he replied, "will say nothing to that, because I will be doing this." He took her face in his hands and kissed her for a long while.

"I want it now," she breathed as they broke apart, placing her hands over his on her cheeks. "Do you think we'll have to wait very long to go?"

"Not so much. A month or two perhaps, to get it all arranged."

"My sisters will be glad to hear it. Edith told me I've been 'absolutely horrid' since Scotland."

"Why would she say that?"

"Because it's true," Sybil admitted. "It turns out that being kept away from you doesn't much agree with me."

"It's just for a little while." He lifted her hand and kissed it.

"You're handling it rather well," she said, making a face. "Should I be worried?"

"Well, this is a marked improvement from the last two years."

She couldn't argue with that; sometimes his brutal honesty was brutal. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't say it to make you feel bad," he told her, lifting her downcast eyes. "Look at me. We figured out the hard part. The hard part is finding someone in the world to love, someone you want to wake up to every morning, someone to challenge you and make you better. _Love_ is the hard part. What we're dealing with is just the detail. And if you don't believe me, ask your sisters because I bet, if they were honest, they'd trade their positions for yours in a heartbeat."

She thought about Mary, the one she loves pledged to marry someone else, she herself pledged to marry someone she doesn't love; and Edith, with all her unrequited romantic feelings. "It's true," Sybil mused. "I know my heart, I know your heart. I know I want to spend my life with you. I'm just impatient to get started."

"We'll get there," he promised. "And we'll have the life that we want. I've no doubt about that." He chucked her chin. "Come on, when it comes to having our way, I think you and I are a pretty good bet."

"I'd take it." She kissed him and then amended, "I did take it."

* * *

><p>The hour passed too quickly, of course, and too soon they were all climbing back into the car. But it was a whole new Sybil on the ride back- she seemed calm and centered and satisfied. Edith filled up the car ride chattering about the exhibit at the library and, surprisingly, Sybil actually listened and asked relevant questions and seemed to be able to focus on something other than her discontentment. Edith saw that, for Sybil, an hour with Branson had proved to be a panacea for everything that wrong in the world.<p>

It was dark by the time they arrived back, so Branson drove them to the front of the house and he and Sybil let on nothing as he offered his hand to help her out of the motor. She walked through the door without ever looking back and by the time they reached her room, she was even humming.

"So what's it like," Edith asked, "to be in love?"

"You'll see," Sybil smiled at her. "Just wait and see."


	30. Chapter 30: December 15, 1918

_Thanks as ever for the reviews!_

_So we don't make it to Christmas in this chapter- but I must to confess, writing this made me VERY excited to find out what our favorite Irish socialists are up to in series 3!_

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><p><strong>December 15, 1918<strong>

Only two daughters entered the breakfast room to the obvious disappointment of their father. "Where is your sister?" He had been waiting anxiously for the girls to come down so he could show the morning edition to Sybil.

Mary shrugged. "Still dressing, I suppose," she said, taking her seat.

"Well, she should like to see this." He held up the _London Times; _the headline took them both by surprise.

"_Shock Election Result as Sinn Fein Wins Unprecedented Majority_," Edith read aloud. She looked up, alarmed, at Mary, who continued to read the sub-header. "_Nationalist party comes to power after promising to end British rule of Ireland_." Mary, cool as ever, took a sip of her tea. "Why would Sybil care about Irish representation in Parliament?'

"Not that. This." Robert pointed to an article below the fold. "An Irish woman," he said with a grunt, "has become the first female elected to the British parliament."

"What's that about a woman and Parliament?" Sybil asked, appearing in the doorway. "Good morning, Papa," she greeted. "Sorry I'm late."

"Not at all," he replied, smiling. Sybil had been in much better spirits lately and he was glad of it; for the first time in a long time, he felt he could actually hold a conversation with his daughter without her looking like she would rather be anywhere else but talking to him. The other night after dinner, the family had all played a game of quotations and they had been teamed up against Cora and Edith and Violet and Mary. He had forgotten what good fun Sybil could be- a formidable competitor to be sure, but she didn't obsess over winning like Mary or take it too seriously like Edith. As a child, Sybil had always wanted to partner with him- he would patiently teach her the game, the rules, the secret moves and maneuvers. She used to think he knew everything. _That was a long time ago_, he rued_._

"I'm glad you're down, darling," he said brightly, gesturing for her to take the seat beside him. "I've been waiting to show this to you."

Sybil took the newspaper he offered. "A landslide for Sinn Fein!" she exclaimed. _Oh God,_ how she wished she were in the garage right now, that Tom was seated across from her and she could hear everything he thought about it and they could celebrate together because_ it had really happened! _His hope for great change with this election had been vindicated_. __He must be positively ecstatic_, she thought.

Then she was struck by another, more grave thought:_ the war for independence has begun_.

Her eyes flickered up to see her father's expectant face, watching her digest the news. _He has no idea_. That's when she realized how cataclysmic this result was. _The Irish people have just fired the warning shot_. At her father. At his people, his country, his power that he had never earned. _And I'm about to join them_. In that moment, she swore she could feel the earth turning on its axis; incessant, violent, forward motion. She felt dizzy from the vertigo, but quick glance around the table showed everyone else was unmoved.

_"_Read down the page," Papa instructed, a bit impatiently. "The column on the right."

She did as she was directed and her mouth fell into an irrespressible grin. "Countess Constance Markievicz becomes first woman elected to Parliament!" She was overwhelmed saying the words, hearing those words come from her mouth. _A woman_! And in her lifetime. Sybil was well-acquainted with the Countess' exploits, thanks to Tom, and she also knew the Countess was no ordinary woman or candidate, for that matter. But still, a woman had been elected to Parliament, in a contest where so many women were still barred from voting. That meant it was entirely likely that a majority of men had decided they wanted a woman to represent them; these men wanted a woman to speak _for_ _them,_ when so many women were still not even allowed to speak for themselves.

In her own experience supporting women's suffrage- both knocking on doors and at rallies- she had come face-to-face with men who _hated_ the idea and it had given her a deeply disconcerting feeling that perhaps the hate- in their words, in their eyes- was not directed, as they claimed, at the idea of women _voting_, but simply at _women_. There had been one door she would never forget, the woman who answered had tried meekly to warn her group off with her eyes but her husband, a burly man in a neat suit, was already coming into the hall. Sybil had stepped forward to give him the short prepared speech that concluded with an ask to sign a petition. His eyes were moving over the four women in unsettling ways and Sybil could tell from his venomous stare he would not be signing the petition, but he surprised them all by asking for a pen. She passed it to him and he took hold of her hand, his thumb moving roughly over her ring finger, which was unadorned. "Go home," he snarled, dropping her hand and slamming the door in their faces. The message was clear: society had already decided the role women should play and these young women were in flagrant subversion of it.

But not all men were like that, thank God. Indeed, some of them had just elected a woman. "This is- it's-" her voice cracked and she had to swallow her emotion before she could muster, "I don't know what to say except how _wonderful_!"

Robert was pleased to see how happy the news made Sybil, pleased he had been the one to deliver it to her. Nonetheless he cautioned, "Don't get too excited. She's in prison and likely to stay there."

"_Prison_?" Edith echoed. "Who gets elected from prison? Who votes for someone in prison?"

"The Irish, apparently," Papa snorted.

"She's a political prisoner," Sybil informed them, annoyed by their condescension- an ingrained superiority she herself had been guilty of displaying toward "the Irish problem." She didn't even know she had it, until Tom had called her out for it. She understood now why he had reacted as he had.

She felt her father's eyes studying her with suspicion. "You've heard of her?"

"Yes," she mumbled, praying he would not ask how she had. _ Damn it, Sybil_. She realized she had to be more circumspect with her disclosures, as she now aware of lots of things she should not know.

But Robert did not ask because _he_ knew- there was only person who would have filled Sybil's ears with talk of an Irish woman radical. "She is not a political prisoner. She is a _criminal_."

"Papa, it says right here she's in prison for speaking out against Irish conscription," Sybil argued. "Tell me, what's criminal about speaking her mind? Should she be imprisoned for voicing an opinion?"

"She is not a private citizen. She is a convicted rebel leader who tried to lead a coup against the British military."

"Oh, Papa!" Sybil shook her head in exasperation. "You make her sound like Guy Fawkes! The Easter Rising wasn't an attempt to take down the British government, it was about fighting for a government of their own. Which, as you can see from the election results, is quite clearly something the majority of the Irish people support."

"She shot at British officers!" Robert practically shouted, aghast at his daughter's attitude.

"Do you think the British weren't shooting at her?" Sybil practically shouted right back.

"I am not going to debate with you as to whether shooting at people- at _military officers_- is an acceptable way to express one's political opinion. I will only say this," he started, "since you are so concerned with women not being treated equally. Let me assure you, were she a man, she would have been taken out by a firing squad and you would still be waiting for your first female representative."

The only possible way for Sybil to hold her tongue was to physically remove herself from the table, so she did so, insides roiling as she picked through the breakfast fare. She should be _grateful_ for women's oppression because it had allowed this woman to live long enough to get elected? Did he really just say that? _I think he did_.

Mary and Edith had been watching stone-faced as the conversation devolved into an argument, a shouting match, and finally- thankfully- into silence. Mary, in an attempt to be the peacemaker and to turn the topic away from Ireland and Irish people (especially one Irish person in particular), spoke up. "The new Parliament won't sit until January, so we will just have to wait to see what happens."

But Papa couldn't let it alone. "A Sinn Fein majority. I suppose Branson is thrilled," he muttered pointedly.

Sybil swore she felt the oxygen leave of the room as her sisters collectively sucked in their breath. "I suppose he is," she answered evenly, as she resumed her seat. "He is Irish, after all."

"Is Ireland really going to try and break from the British Empire?" Edith interjected nervously.

"It can try," Papa replied. "But I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like we haven't been through this with the Irish for half a millennium."

Sybil knew she should just stay quiet, but she couldn't help it. "Things have changed, Papa. The war has made them different."

"Every generation thinks it's different," Papa scoffed. "Idealistic young men- and, I suppose, some women as well- thinking they're going to forge a new world. It's just a part of youth."

_A part of youth_?

"The young men of my generation aren't idealistic," Sybil countered, quiet but resolute. "They're dead."

Her father raised his eyebrows. "Talk to me in five years and we shall see who was right."

_Oh Father_, she thought, _it won't take nearly that long_.

* * *

><p><em>This is Ireland's moment- the revolution has started and this time, we're going to win<em>.

The newspaper headline had stunned Tom; despite his brother's growing confidence, despite what he believed to be Sinn Fein's willingness to do whatever it took to make winning a certainty, the sheer margin of victory astonished him. To see it in print- and in an English paper no less!- filled him with unexpected and robust emotion and some of it may have escaped down his cheeks; he knew that was happening to ruddy, red-faced men all over Ireland right now and every one of them (and he, if he were there) would be claiming it was the rain. Because as of today, Irish independence is no longer just shyte for students and barkeeps to talk in pubs after too many drinks. It is _happening_ and through the ballot box, no less. And the election of the Countess from prison! _Good old Dublin St. Patrick's, _a seat of the revolution if there ever was one. _Well done, lads_. He wanted to buy every one of those brave rebel voters a pint.

And he desperately wanted to see Sybil. This triumph, like everything, would be so much sweeter for him if she were here to share it. _She'll want us to find a flat in Dublin St. Patrick's_, he imagined, as it is currently the most progressive neighborhood in the British Empire, the only place where an Irish (or British) woman can be represented in government by a member of her own sex. _And it will be our flat, our neighborhood, our elected official_.

He_ loved_ the idea. _  
><em>

Then he remembered that Dublin St. Patrick's is also where his cousin was buried. He recalled the letter from his aunt in response to the condolences he had sent her. What she had written about the British... his family had always been deeply nationalistic, there was never any love lost for the British, but he had been shocked by the intense, unabated hatred that had poured out of her onto the page. He still hadn't written home and now he found himself wondering how his aunt would react when she found out he intended to install himself and his British lady in a flat near her son's grave. _The Countess is British__, _he reasoned, though the guns and the gaol had no doubt gone a long way in proving her loyalty. The Countess had shown in the Rising and the aftermath that she was willing to give a pound of flesh, as penalty for her English blood, if necessary. _No one better dare expect Sybil to prove herself in some kind of litmus test_. She was marrying him and moving to Ireland-that was commitment enough. And he was prepared to answer to anyone who didn't agree.

But he pushed those thoughts of his mind. Today was a day for rejoicing- for his family, for his aunt, for his dead cousin- because after all the many, many wrongs done to Ireland, what had happened today was right.

He hung around the garage all day, hoping she would come but knowing she couldn't; it would have been far too conspicuous on this day. That night, he joined the servants in the dining room after dinner, downing whiskey with unspoken toasts to his countrymen. He had even tried to make solidarity with O'Brien, raising his glass to her in the doorway- "'Tis a grand day, isn't it, O'Brien? Slainte!"- to which she had scowled and muttered under her breath, "Bloody immigrants."

Anna took a seat behind him, a cup of tea in hand, and in a moment when no one was listening, leaned over conspiratorially and whispered, "I've had a request from Lady Sybil."

He snapped to attention. Obviously, he knew Anna knew- Sybil had told him Anna was in the car at the inn- but neither he nor Anna had ever spoken of or even acknowledged his relationship with Sybil since the one conversation they had in which he thanked her, his neck hot with embarrassment, for not ratting him out to Mr. Carson for having sent an intimate correspondence to Lady Sybil's bedroom.

_Jesus Christ, that note. _The note about the stupid prank for which he had almost thrown his life away. If he had gone through with it, he would be in prison right now instead of planning where he and his future wife would live. Sybil had known, had said as much to him. _She is good for me_. He must have repeated that statement to himself a thousand times in the last two years, but its power and truth had not waned. She knew what a fecking idiot he could be, but she also knew how to call him off, calm him down. His belief in her had saved him once; he was sure it would do again.

"Mr. Branson?" Anna was calling him out of his thoughts and he apologized. "You got lost there for a moment!" she laughed, before moving to the matter at hand. "Lady Sybil has asked me to ask you," she started quietly as preamble, before returning to normal volume, "how are we to interpret the results of the vote in Ireland?"

Ah, at least she was missing him too- and clever of her to ask Anna to be a conduit. "Well, Sinn Fein has been pretty clear they won't sit," he began. "Withdrawing Irish representation from Parliament was the number one promise in their Manifesto." He relayed a few other thoughts to Anna, which she promised to relay, as requested, to Lady Sybil. When Anna got up to go to bed an hour later, he made his own request, cornering her in the hallway, voice thick, words slurring. "Tell her I love her- I _love_ her." The drink and the day had made him say it and almost as quickly, he regretted it. "I'm sorry, I've no right to say that to you. Forgive me." He had never been drunk at the house before, but God bless Anna, she offered him a forgiving smile and told him he best go to bed himself. He took her advice.

* * *

><p><strong>December 16, 1918<strong>

The next day, Anna sought him out again. "Lady Sybil has another request."

"Oh, does she?"

"She would like a copy of the Manifesto, if you have one."

"Of course I do." He went to his cottage and retrieved Sinn Fein's Manifesto, sealing it in an envelope. He took it to Anna, but in the sober light of the new day, he was not convinced he should give it to her. "Anna, I do appreciate your passing on messages between us, but we shouldn't be asking it of you." He thought he was perhaps more sensitive to Anna's position; she couldn't say no to her employer- nay, her _master- _even if Lady Sybil was engaging in a forbidden relationship_. _ "It's our affair. We've no right to put you in the middle."

"I can worry about myself and my own actions," Anna informed him. He gave her a smile of sincere gratitude. "Oh and about your other request- Lady Sybil said to tell you, she as well."

* * *

><p>That night, Anna came to Sybil's room with the Manifesto. "Oh, marvelous! Thank you, Anna." She went to take the envelope, but Anna stopped short of handing it to her.<p>

"Mr. Branson has a request for you."

"Oh, does he?"

"He said to tell you it's his only copy and to please take care with it. And he would like it back."

Later that night, Tom, restless with thoughts of the upheaval underway across the sea, decided the cold night air might relieve his fevered mind. Walking by the big, grand house, he saw that all the windows on the second floor were dark, all except for one.

Inside, Sybil was at her desk, carefully copying the words of the Manifesto. _Writing will definitely be Tom's purview in our house_. She was good with her hands, as nursing had shown her- she and Tom shared that in common. But she was not a writer. She had never kept a journal nor was she someone who naturally expressed herself through words. But tonight, she was merely a scribe and the act of penning, with her own hand, these words-

_"the enforced exodus of millions of our people, the decay of our industrial life, the ever-increasing financial plunder of our country... _

__induced to don the uniform of our seven-century old oppressor, and place their lives at the disposal of the military machine that holds our Nation in bondage...__

_the right of a nation to sovereign independence rests upon immutable natural law..._

__government by consent of the governed...__

_... the only status befitting this ancient realm is the status of a free nation."_

- these words flowing through her- from her eyes, to her mind, down her arm, into her hand, her fingers, onto the paper and back to her eyes again- had the effect of transfiguring them and by the time she set down her pen, she had become a believer.

She shared this experience with him a few days later, when they were finally able to steal a few minutes of the afternoon. He asked what had triggered her conversion. Her answer had come before she had time to think about it. "I realized I was not writing about a foreign people- I was writing about my family."


	31. Chapter 31: On the Eve of 1919 Part I

_Thank you as always for the kind reviews! _

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><p>The music rang out through the great hall as the residents of the Abbey, aristocrats and servants alike, prepared to ring in the first New Year without war in four years. The clock ticked toward twelve and everyone was dancing- the Dowager Countess, Mr. Carson, even O'Brien- and drinking and deliberately not thinking of those for whom the music had stopped forever.<p>

Tom Branson had no interest in the newly-revived Servants' Ball- it felt completely fraudulent to drink Lord Grantham's liquor and dance in his house, given the situation- but he had concluded that his absence would only invite questions, so here he was, dressed in a suit, seated alone at a table against the wall with a tumbler of whiskey. It was smoky and peaty, almost chokingly so- an acrid contrast to the smooth malts of Ireland- but of excellent quality. He nursed the drink and tried to stare absently at the festivities, but his gaze kept gravitating to the same gold ribbon and of course, the owner to whom it was attached.

_She is,_ _far and away_, he thought, _the prettiest and the most interesting person in the room_. _Maybe in any room. _And she had decided to marry_ him_.

She looked over, pretending not to be looking, and their eyes locked. She rewarded him with a ghost of a smile, the ribbon peeking out from a coif of dark curls, before reluctantly turning back to her conversation and he felt a warm sensation inside that could not be blamed on the alcohol.

_Not bad, Branson. Not bad at all_.

Another dance started and Sybil disappeared from view and in her absence, his mind started to wander, wondering how he had wound up here in this thoroughly impossible place.

Before Tom Branson became seriously interested in politics, he became seriously interested in girls.

More than a decade ago, on a December night not unlike this one, he had tagged along with an older cousin and his cousin's older friends to a dance in a church hall. A recent growth spurt had left him looking older than his fourteen years and, dressed in church clothes, he felt for the first time closer to a man than a boy. Under the hawkish watch of the parish priests who had known them all- and their parents- since baptism, they stood in a corner of the hall, surveying the local girls with plain dresses and colorful hair. He spied a girl in his same year at school, with baby fat and freckles, staring at him and whispering to her friends.

"I think that one over there fancies you, Tommy," his cousin nudged, poking him in the back.

But Tom wasn't listening; he was staring at a stunning redhead- two years older than him, maybe three, very much a woman in a sea of children- with a restless, rangy look that hinted at possibility and immediately piqued his interest. "I'd like to talk to her," he announced.

"Good luck with that!" his cousin scoffed. "She's the most beautiful girl here- everyone in this room is wanting to talk to her."

Tom just smiled, undeterred. "That may be, but no one_ is_ talking to her, are they?" he pointed out.

It was true, they realized, feeling a little foolish. It was the classic social paradox: the most beautiful girl in the room remains alone because all the boys assume she mustn't be.

So Tom crossed the room and walked straight up to her. God know what he had said; his opener was a compliment about the pin she had on, which turned out was a gift from her grandparents and so he asked about them and then somehow, it was two hours later and her brother who had brought her wasn't interested in going home so Tom offered to walk her and did. He tried not to let his surprise show when she gave him an address in the roughest part of town and he was not surprised at all when, halfway there, she casually said she might like to go somewhere else. He wondered about her parents and she said it would be easier to sneak in the next morning, her father wouldn't be awake and he wouldn't remember what had happened the night previous. His own mother would kill him, he thought, but it was a small price.

At her request, they walked through the nicest neighborhood in town, the one farthest and furthest from where they lived. He felt like a thief just being on the sidewalk, as if he were breaking and entering the idyll and sullying it with his presence (he had not yet realized it was _wrong_ to feel that way). But she was enraptured, pointing out all the details of the exteriors and the windows that offered a peek at a chandelier or grand piano inside. "I am going to live in a place like that some day," she vowed with as much resolve as he had ever heard.

He didn't care much about the furnishings of fancy homes, but he was aware, even at that young age, he was learning an important lesson about people and specifically about women walking those darkened streets. They walked on to the riverbank where she fell asleep in his arms on a park bench.

He arrived at his cousin's house after seeing her home the next morning, knowing his aunt would have already gone out. "Show me the lad at fourteen and I'll show you the man," his cousin teased him, playing on the old Jesuit aphorism. "Beware if that's true," he warned, "because if so, _that_ man will think there isn't _anything_ in life he can't get."

That lad, now within striking distance of thirty, smiled at the memory of the conversation in that shabby kitchen in Dublin from his seat in the corner of a _castle_ that could have held the all the houses of everyone he had ever known and thensome. Life was a truly strange thing; how had he, Tom Branson- from nowhere, of no one- come to this castle, about to be wed to the girl who lived in it?

_I'd like to talk to her_.

His gaze came to rest on Lord Grantham, who he thought a decent man, except for his relentlessly disapproving attitude towards his youngest daughter. He was certain Lord Grantham would not understand, when they finally did tell him, how this happened, how his daughter could have been unmoored from this place. He would never believe, if he asked, Tom's answer:

_No one was talking to her. So I did_.

Choosing to leave had been hard, but falling in love was simple.

The lesson of those darkened streets was that women also have an internal life, dreams and desires, and their dreams and desires can burn as hotly and fiercely as those of men. They might not say it directly (_ambition_ would hardly make society's list of feminine virtues), they might even hide it for a long while, but if a man cares to find it, if he's willing to walk that street again and again, eventually he'll find the window that offers a glimpse in.

* * *

><p>Isobel had come over at exactly the right time. Tom was toying with her, with his little furtive upward glances and nonchalant smiles directed elsewhere, and the room was starting to feel too small. Did he think she was not onto him, seated there in a smart suit, tracing circles around the rim of his glass? <em>You are a terrible flirt. <em>They had not been alone together for more than a few moments since that afternoon in the park- nearly three _weeks_ ago! Christmas had been an overzealous affair with no opportunity to escape, but she was already thinking about tonight. With everyone in the house exhausted from drinking and dancing, she could make a short trip to the cottage with no one the wiser. She had discovered that kissing had quickly moved from being a novelty to a need. Sometimes it was hard to believe she had survived twenty-one years without it. She wondered, _w__as__ it the same with._..?

"May I have you for a moment?" Isobel asked, interrupting her thoughts. "I have something to give you." Isobel ushered Sybil into the library and gestured for her to take a seat on the sofa. "Now, normally the hospital would deliver this, but as I know you, I offered." Isobel reached for a bag behind the sofa and from it, retrieved a cream-and-red box that she handed to Sybil. The lid was embossed with an official emblem and read: _British Red Cross Society, For War Service_ _1914-1918. "_Look inside," Isobel urged her, excitedly. "It's a service medal, awarded to any registered or volunteer nurse who served at least a thousand hours during the war. "

"I don't know what to say." Sybil was moved by how heavy- _important_- the commendation felt in her palm. No task she had ever performed had been done for recognition, but she couldn't deny it felt nice to get it. "It looks very official," she commented with an almost abashed smile.

"It's lovely though just ornamental, I'm afraid," Isobel informed her. "But these," she said, handing Sybil a second box, "these could be your ticket." Sybil lifted the lid, which was also stamped with the British Red Cross emblem, and found two badges-less ornate but both with the official red cross dangling from it proclaiming Proficiency in Nursing and in First Aid. "Those _are_ official," Isobel explained. "You may not be a state registered nurse, but you do now have certification from the Red Cross."

Sybil recalled how, at the hospital, Isobel had been irritatingly officious, hounding her to make sure her "records were in order" (the phrase Isobel had used) by taking certification exams. Sybil had been too busy to investigate; she had to take examinations during the training course to become a VAD and it seemed plausible that proficiency in various areas would be periodically tested. It dawned on her now that the exams were not for records, nor did all the VAD nurses take them. "Isobel, did you-" She didn't need to finish the question. "You did this. You made me do this."

"_You_ did it," Isobel corrected her. "I was just unwilling to let all your work and talent and training be for naught."

"I can't tell you what this means to me. Thank you."

"I admit, I had some doubts when we first spoke about nursing that you would be able to handle it, especially after you admitted you had never even made a bed!" Isobel laughed as if she still couldn't quite believe it. _Make a bed? I had never even turned on a faucet myself! _Sybil thought, now laughing herself. She couldn't believe she had ever been that person- and so recently! It felt like a lifetime ago. _It was a lifetime ago_. "But you've grown and learned so much since then," Isobel continued, echoing her own thoughts. "You worked hard and you earned them."

"It wasn't hard," Sybil told her. "The work itself was hard, but it wasn't hard to _do_ because I loved it. That's what surprised me. It might have started as a duty, but it became a passion." Saying those words, in the past tense, made her feel sad; a great and empowering time in her life had passed, there would be others of course, but never this one again.

Sybil's voice was full of emotion, holding those badges as if she were trying to hold on to the life they were connected to and Isobel was once again indignant for her upbringing. _This child is clearly not of this place. _Were Robert and Cora blind to this or did they refuse to see? "I also have the certificates that go along with those badges. They could be of help in the future, depending on what you decided to do." She approached her next question carefully, aware that she was tempting the Granthams' daughter into apostasy. "And what of the future then?"

Sybil looked up at her. "Did you know there is a medical school in London just for women?"

"I did," Isobel answered, surprised. "I once took Matthew, as a little boy, to see a doctor who had graduated from there." _This could be a solution_, Isobel thought. _Robert would never allow Sybil to take a job- nor would any husband Robert approved of- but perhaps he could be swayed on education_. "Sybil, are you interested in medical school?"

"No," Sybil replied. "I've never been to school, short of the two-month training course in York. I have no degree, I don't know Latin or science or math beyond basic arithmetic. I would never be accepted."

"You do have the time and means to hire a tutor," Isobel encouraged. "It would likely take a few years to prepare, but if you wanted to-"

"I like being a nurse. I would like to be a better one and work on more challenging patient cases, like surgeries or emergency care." Sybil cast a knowing look at her fellow nurse and grinned. "I think I'm actually better in chaos than something more tranquil, like long-term care. I rather like the madness."

A part of Isobel knew it was cruel to encourage Sybil to pursue ambitions that would pit her against her family- and indeed, that she could probably never act on- but she couldn't help it. "There's a hospital in London called the South London Hospital for Women and Children."

"South London!" Sybil exclaimed. That was a part of London she had never seen and she was instantly interested_._

"It has an all-female staff and it only hires women. It's a very progressive place and I'm sure it would offer you many opportunities to improve your skills and further your education. I know a woman on the board and I'm sure any of the doctors you worked with at the hospital would write you a reference." _And if your parents refuse, __I'll give you the money to go myself. _Sybil appeared to be turning the idea over in her mind. "I could see you in London, in the city, on your own. I rather think you would thrive."

_What about Dublin_? Sybil desperately wanted to ask. _Do you know of any hospitals there? _She had to admit, living in London- not in Aunt Rosamund's house, but in _real_ London- sounded exciting. Imagine! A real job at a hospital to go to. Her own flat to come home to. Spending her free time how she wanted, in the city with all its lights and noise and people and new experiences. But she was going to have all that (she hoped), but also much more than that- someone to love and love her, a partner, a champion, _someone to kiss and... _

"Thank you. You've done so much for me, truly, and I do so appreciate it," Sybil responded. "But I don't know that South London is the place for me now."

Isobel sighed, but didn't argue. "We all have our parts to play and you are young and still discovering what your role will be. Lavinia, God bless her, she's sweet as sugar and I'm sure she'll be a good wife. But the world needs strong women, Sybil, and it needs them to speak up, to speak out, to take action. The world needs women to change it, not just decorate it."

"Cousin Isobel, can I- I want all that- to work, to become more educated, to make my voice heard and fight for change. But I also have realized that I want to marry, to be in love, to have a family. Does one- a woman- have to choose? Is it possible to have all of them?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear. I'd like to tell you otherwise, but that is the truth of our situation in society." Sybil made a face and turned her eyes downward. Isobel took her hand. "But you asked me about _women. _If we are talking about you- do _you_ have to choose? Well, my dear, that is a differently story entirely. I think _you_ should go after all that you want. Will it be hard? Of course. Will people tell you you can't and shouldn't try? All the time about everything. How is that different from what you've come up against these past three years? The only difference I see is now you _know_ you can do it- you can do what's hard, you can defy the expectations of others. Do not underestimate it, for that is a very powerful thing."

* * *

><p>Edith was about to take a sip of punch, when Sybil came running up, seizing her arm and almost knocking the punch down her front, begging breathlessly, "Ask Branson to dance!"<p>

"Ugh!" Edith shrugged Sybil's hand off her and steadied her cup. "Really, Sybil."

"Just a short dance," Sybil persisted, "and tell him to meet me outside, by back door, in ten minutes. And tell him I'm excited, so he won't worry."

"I think I made my contribution to your illicit romance in Ripon," Edith responded. "No."

Edith recognized the age-old look that came over Sybil's face- when she was about to knock over the blocks or fight with Papa or that time when she was six and Edith ten and Edith had yanked her hair and Sybil had turned around and _clocked_ her - the precursor to destruction.

"Fine, I'll ask him to dance myself. He can kiss me for luck in the New Year," she threatened. "That will certainly liven up this party."

"Sybil, don't you dare!" Edith yelped, grabbing her wrist.

"So you'll do it then? Oh, thank you!"

Edith glared at her sister's back as she scampered off, them marched over to the table where Branson sat alone with a drink. "Branson, I think you should ask me to dance."

"Uh..." He glanced around at the dancing guests. _Where is Sybil? _He hoped this wasn't some coordinated campaign by her sisters to warn him off."I don't think-"

"Do it," Edith ordered. And despite his apprehensions, he rose and extended his hand. Edith accepted it and he placed his hand on the small of her back and it was all very strange; to assume such an intimate posture with him now that she knew... _he's held Sybil much closer than this, he's kissed her and God knows what else_. His hands were rougher but much stronger than, say, Sir Anthony's; scrubbed clean, but stained a bit around the fingers where the oil had refused to wash out. His touch was light and formal, as the music called for, and she couldn't help but think that however her sister and the chauffeur ended up- if it was indeed to be in a marriage bed- it had all started with one touch that had unleashed so much more.

Branson was watching her, looking for some clue as to the purpose of this dance. Edith had never noticed before, but his eyes were a very deep blue and his mouth a little upturned, almost a smirk. _That explains Sybil's attraction, _she thought, _a little mirror of herself_. She sighed and delivered the message. "Sybil says to meet her outside, by the back door, in ten minutes. She said to tell you she is excited." He raised his eyebrows, but did not ask any questions. They turned in time; he knew the steps and was a fine partner and Edith briefly wondered where he had learned to dance. It struck her that she had never thought about him having a life outside of Downton.

"I hope you know Sybil must always have her way."

He parried with a smile. "I know."

"That's a strange quality to look for in a spouse," Edith remarked with a bite. "One who must always have her way. Isn't marriage supposed to be about compromise?"

He was looking past her, not taking the bait. "I'm not worried about it."

"You should be. People mistakenly assume Sybil is all sweetness and light, but she's not hesitated to give me a bruising and I doubt she'll hesitate to give one to you if she thinks you deserve it."

"I consider myself duly warned," he chuckled. "And I would never assume anything about Sybil- she's full of surprises," he added, voice full of admiration and affection. They made another half-turn and he nodded in the direction of Mary, who was dancing with Carson and glaring in their direction. "We've got Lady Mary's attention. She'll be none too pleased about me talking to Sybil."

Edith didn't bother looking back. "She won't try to stop you. Mary has known Sybil since the day she arrived on earth- she knows her better than anyone. And Mary knows that telling Sybil she _can't_ do something is pretty much a guarantee that she_ will_ do it. It's just how she is." Although he didn't show it outwardly, Edith thought she felt a slackening of confidence in Branson; such was the power of touch. "You better go," Edith said as the music stopped and he went.

* * *

><p><em>AN: The Red Cross war service medals were real but weren't distributed until 1920 (artistic license!)._


	32. Chapter 32: On the Eve of 1919 Part II

_Thanks as always for the reviews! _

_Quick note: this is my last update until next month because I will be on vacation. Next up: a letter from the editor and the big plan. For now, enjoy!_

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><p>He rounded the corner and saw her standing at the far end of the wall, just outside the corona of light from the lamp posted above the door, looking up at the stars. The big grand house was bright for the late hour, on account of the ball, but they were too far from the great hall to hear the music or the gaiety inside. His steps shifted the stones underneath his feet as he crossed under the light. She didn't turn, but neither did she startle when he, after with a quick glance to confirm no one else was around, came behind her, laid a hand on her waist and kissed her temple. "It's pretty brazen for us to be meeting out here, isn't it?"<p>

"Perhaps. But I don't care." She sighed contentedly as she relaxed her shoulders to rest against him. _Peace_. "I'm glad you're here." The night was very still and not too cold. _This time last year... _

He followed her gaze upward, searching the sky until he found three stars aligned in an unmistakable constellation. "There's Orion." She felt his laugh rumble against her. "That's the only one I know."

"I can teach you. Papa taught us all of them." She smiled, recalling the memory. "We would unroll the sky maps and chart our course. I used to pretend I was an explorer. And out back, he would put me on his shoulders- you forget how tall grown-ups seem when you're small- but sitting up there, I felt I could almost touch them. If I grew just a few more centimeters, I could reach."

She was seeing off, into the past; he saw the future. _Our children_. A little bright-eyed girl- _with her hair or mine or something in between?- _running across a darkened lawn, reaching up. He tried to make out the details. _Here? Or Ireland? __It could be anywhere, really._ It is the same sky, after all, _wherever we go_. He rested his cheek against her head and sighed.

_More_. So much more.

He wanted to turn her towards him, to her kiss her, but she was holding two boxes and it frustrated his aim. "What have you got there?"

"The reason I asked you out here," she informed him, turning and handing them over. "Isobel gave them to me just now. I couldn't wait to show you."

"The British Red Cross," he read, fingers grazing the emblem. "They look very official."

"They are official," she said, beaming as she watched him lift out the proficiency badges and inspect them. "They even come with certification letters."

"I'm very impressed. And very proud," he told her, kissing her cheek. "So am I engaged to a certified nurse now?"

"I think it means I'm certified to _do_ nursing. I'm not a registered nurse," she clarified a bit shyly, accepting the boxes back from him. "But Isobel says it will count for a lot, should I want to apply for a job." As the words escaped her, she was smacked with a sudden reticence. _I want. I want. __You must stop that, Sybil. __  
><em>

"Would you like to have a job?"

"Yes. I would." His question sounded neutral, upbeat even and she couldn't gauge his expression through the shadows. But she suddenly felt self-conscious- he was not her _friend_ anymore, he was to be her husband and she should probably be _asking_ his permission or something. Not that she could ever imagine doing that with him. If they were in the garage and she did that, he would look up from his paper, his face would screw up and he would say something so completely _Tom- Are you serious with this_? as if she'd just asked him to join the circus- and laugh and then she'd start laughing because it was ridiculous: _that's not what _we_ do_. But in front of her house, in this constricting dress that made it hard to walk and this stupid corset that made it even harder to breathe, her thoughts were mixed up and she was rambling. "I know we'll have a different life in Dublin and there will be a lot of work at home. I _want_ that, I welcome it, truly I do- I will take a lot of pride in being able to care for my own home, our home. But I think I can do that and work as well." _Maybe the corset is cutting off the oxygen flow to my mind. _

"Sure. If you say so." He was puzzled. She seemed to be waiting for an answer from him, but she hadn't asked a question. _And w__hy does she sound so nervous?_ "If you say you can and you want to, I trust you."

"Well, then, what about you?" She was never very good at this _asking permission_ stuff.

"What about me?"

"How would you feel about me working?" she asked tentatively, stubbing her shoe into the stones. Her eyes flickered up and she saw it: the _ar__e you serious_? face. "Well, a lot men wouldn't like it," she huffed.

"True, but I don't think you to be marrying any of them!" he countered with a laugh.

"Don't kid with me," she chided. "I'm asking how you _feel._"

"Sybil, I was willing to teach you engine mechanics! And if you'd have been half as good at that as you are at nursing, I'd have put myself out of a job." Seeing her uncertainty, set against the backdrop of this ridiculous house, all he could think was _we really need to get out of here_. "All that is to say, I'm not too keen on society's rules about what's proper for women to do or not do. And as I remember it, you're not too keen on rules, period."

"You _say_ that, but people will think-"

"Are we caring what people think now?" he interrupted. "Because if so, then you'd better just stay here."

She raised an eyebrow at his tone. "You don't know how you'll feel if people start saying Tom Branson can't take care of his family and his wife's had to go to work!"

"Let them say what they like! They will do anyway." He knew she was peeved, thinking he was refusing to discuss it. "There's just nothing to consider, love. I don't care what anyone else thinks. I don't care what anyone else says. I care about _you_. I care about keeping the promise I made to you in York, that if you chose to be with me-"

"- that you would make me happy." She hadn't thought about that afternoon under the arch in York for a long time, but hearing those words from two years ago, realizing both the simplicity and the scope of that promise, _saying_ them with her own tongue and feeling the weight of promising that to another person, flooded her with feelings of humility and gratitude and love.

"If working would make you happy, then that's what I want you to do," he finished simply. She was looking down, holding fast to those boxes as if they were the dreams themselves. He took them and set them on the sill of one of the shuttered windows, then took her hands. "I want _you_. _You_ are who I waited for. Not some other you, not you trying to be something else- you've had your fill of that, I think. Just you."

She raised her eyes to his, wondering if he knew what a gift that acceptance is, that this house- and anyone welcome in this house- would not only deny her from having, but mock her for wanting. And yet, here he stood, offering it so freely, wanting her to take it. _Thank you. Thank you. _"Thank you," she finally said, with all the meaning she could muster.

"I say, our house, our rules and to hell with everyone else," he proposed, as if channeling her thoughts. "They don't get a say. Besides, didn't someone wise once say that change begins at home?"

That made her grin. "I'm pretty sure that was my mother," she corrected him, "but I taught her well." They stayed there for a minute, both of them, remembering that perfect blue afternoon from the _very _old days, before York, before Ripon, even before all the lively conversations in the car. "That was the first time you ever drove me anywhere," she recalled, a gleam in her eye. "You opened the door and I thought, 'The new chauffeur is young. And handsome.'"

"Thank God it never occurred to your father."

"Quite right," she snickered. She sized him up now, half in shadow; a few years older, but still handsome- and so much more. Bold and confident with a sharp mind (that he would make something himself was a certainty to her), idealistic almost to a fault (certainly to his own heartbreak), hotheaded (certain to result in some wicked fights in their little flat), but hot-blooded too (she was eager to fill in the details of that). "Want to go somewhere?" The words tumbled out, fast and urgent, and there was no doubt as to what they were proposing.

_Oh God, yes. _"Can you?"

"I can sneak out after everyone goes to bed- it shouldn't be more than an hour. Shall I come to your cottage?"

He considered and then answered, "No. Meet me at the car."

* * *

><p>"No one should ever marry before doing this," Sybil proclaimed hoarsely, stealing a breath before returning her mouth to Tom's. They were seated on an old blanket in the back corner of the garage, hidden by the motor. He sat against the wall, legs outstretched, while she sat opposite him, legs tucked under her. A short, thick candle was burning an arm's reach away, its flame dancing on the wall, low enough so that it couldn't be seen from the doorway.<p>

"Should we be worried about the time?" he asked, much as he hated to. "It's probably been at least a half hour."

She shook her head, displeased with the interruption. "My parents are asleep," she assured him against his lips. _Less questions, more-_

"What about your sisters?" he wondered at the curve of her throat.

"Don't worry about them." He pulled back, quirking an eyebrow at the flippant response and she sighed, her fingers playing around the open button at his collar, and gave him a proper answer. "Their new tack seems to be to let it burn and hope it burns out." She glanced up and saw the faintest flash of worry in his eyes. _Maybe a little bit less frightfully full of himself than I thought_. She stared at him a moment- _but_ y_ou needn't worry, not even a little-_ before venturing,"You won't go cold on me, will you?"

"No." He was twisting a tendril with his fingers, his knuckles brushing her cheek. He released it and returned his hand to her chin, running his thumb across her lower lip. "Will you go cold on me?" It was almost patronizing.

She shook her head. "No."

"Good. Then we're agreed." As they kissed, he reached behind her and pulled the ribbon loose, sending dark waves spilling over his forearms.

She fidgeted a bit as his fingers threaded her hair. She wanted to get closer. And she was starting to become uncomfortable. "Can I sit on your lap?" Such a long time in the same position on the hard cement floor. That had to be it, surely.

"Yes," he answered too quickly. "And for the record, you don't ever have to ask."

She lifted her skirt little and shifted so she was kneeling, resting on her heels. She considered the ergonomics, frowning, and when he held out his arms to her, she assumed the only sensible position for weight, balance, and sustainability: she simply placed one of her knees on his other side.

"_Jesus_," he exclaimed with a short laugh, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't think you meant like _that_!"

"It won't work any other way," she protested without embarrassment. _Easy for her_. He had tried, _really_ tried over the past five years, to keep his fantasies faceless out of some combination of respect and an aversion to masochism. But there was that _one _that crept up on him some nights and here she was, really here, practically _acting it out_ except for the fact that she was going on about equilibrium or something. "I'm too heavy to sit on your thigh for your very long-"

"Wait, what?" he said, checking back into the conversation. "No, you're not."

She made a face at him, then demanded bluntly, "Do you want me to move?"

He knew the right answer was yes. "No. I don't want you to move." It was the truth, after all. "But if anyone walks in, I'm going to tell them it was _you_ who was scandalizing _me_."

"No one's going to walk in," she said, rolling her eyes. She settled in, realizing she quite liked the new position, and clasped her hands behind his neck. "Besides, it's not _so_ scandalous- it's not like we're lying down or anything," she pointed out, expecting him to concur and being somewhat surprised when he didn't.

He thought it was an attempt at a joke he didn't quite get, but then it occurred to him. _S__he doesn't know. Well, why should she? _He now felt bad for having teased. "Of course I want you close to me," he said, coming to kiss her once more. 'It was stupid to say anything otherwise." They resumed what they were doing before the controversial position change and the space fell silent again except for the occasional soft sound of invitation or approval, and the ruffling of the fabric as she shifted closer which caused him to shift- "Oh!" She looked down at his lap, mouth agape. "Did you do that on purpose?"

"Ah, no," he said, easing her back. "Not exactly. But I'm-"

"Don't apologize- it's a perfectly normal, natural response," she stated mirthfully. "And because I don't think you're sorry and I'm not either," she added with a wicked look. He was still attempting (and mostly failing) to ease her back. "Stop trying to push me off," she admonished, stubbornly holding her position. "Good grief Tom, do you really think I'm surprised? I am a nurse, you know."

"Well, you did gasp."

"Not with _surprise_." She looked him, hot under her lashes, and pulled herself victoriously flush with him. "See, I won't bite."

_Jesus _indeed. "It doesn't uh-" he searched for the phrase- "make you nervous at all?"

"Why would it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. But then I'm not a woman who's never been allowed to sit in the parlor with a man without a chaperone."

"I'm still not," she reminded him, chuckling at the absurdity of it. "But I know about sex." It amused him to hear her use such a frank word and so nonchalantly too. "Not from the chaperones obviously, but from the hospital. Of course, knowing is different than doing..." she said her voice rising a little in octave. She looked at him. "You have, I'm sure."

"Yes."

"A lot?"

There was no way to answer that question. "Enough."

"Well, I am strongly opposed to keeping women in ignorance on any subject, this included. The things they tell girls to scare them- it's ridiculous. As if any bride has ever _died_ or been taken to hospital on her wedding night. It offends me as both a woman and a medical professional."

"In Ireland, they tell us- boys and girls alike- that you'll go to hell. They skip the corporal threat and go right to eternal damnation."

"That didn't stop you," she noted wryly.

"Nope," he said, unapologetic.

"That's a pretty irresistible advertisement," she mused. "It's worth both corporal and eternal punishment."

"Don't make too much light," he said. "There are risks that are, unfortunately, borne by women. We saw that firsthand with Ethel."

"True," she agreed. "Though there don't have to be. At least not on that score."

He looked directly at her, sure she couldn't possibly have meant all the things he was thinking. Surely she meant abstinence as a way to eliminate risk. She gave him a half-smile and shrugged. _No. No, that's not what she meant_. _That's not what she just said to the first man she's kissed, the only man she's kissed, when she's never done anything except kissing_. That was bold. He was both incredulous and impressed. "Are your parents aware of all you learned at the hospital?"

"Hmm, let me think," she giggled. "Remind me to bring it up at dinner tomorrow."

He had never imagined- couldn't have imagined, prior to now- talking to a girl like this _about_ this. He hated artifice in all situations, but even he conceded artifice, slyness and entendre and all that, were a component of seduction. But it was wonderful to speak openly and frankly, as they were doing now, rather than tempting boundaries here or there and waiting for rebuke and if none came, wondering if it was mere toleration. "You amaze me, you know," he told her truly. "It's a hard thing to talk about, especially for women, even ones with experience. It shows remarkable sense of self."

Of all things, it was his compliment that made her blush a little. "Sense of self..." she repeated, with a shake of her head. "Before my debut, my mother pulled me aside and told me not to talk politics. She said 'it's not the kind of thing men want to talk about with women.' I wanted to know what we should talk about. She told me to ask him about himself. 'And remember to smile.'"

The devastation of that last line travelled all the way from 1914 London here, to the first hours of 1919; he could hear it in her voice. Every time she thought about the life she had narrowly escaped, her pulse started to race- flight response. It terrified her. Sometimes she wondered if that fear had paralyzed her for much of the past year. But she was safe now, despite all the vast unknowns ahead- telling their families, moving to Ireland, marriage, sex, finding a job and being good at it while trying to be good at everything else too. None of that scared her; she welcomed the challenge. And she wouldn't face it alone. She took his face in her hands and smiled a genuine smile for him now. "Thank goodness you want to marry me." The candle caught her eye; it had burned down a lot since she first came in. "I should probably go," she said with reluctance.

"Don't be sad. We won't have to sneak around much longer."

"If wishing made it so," she sighed.

"It'll be over soon." His voice was serious and quiet. "I'll work something out, I promise."

"I know. So how about a kiss," she murmured, leaning in, "to 1919?"

"To 1919."


	33. Chapter 33: Winter 1919

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! And thank you for the vacation well-wishes- it was great! __But I'm out of practice, so forgive the rambling installment._

_A/N: thanks for sommertiara for the correction about Sybil's uniform!_

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><p><strong>Winter 1919<strong>

Summer is for love, with its warmth and sunshine and days without end, but they discovered over the next few months that winter had its charms as well- ruddy cheeks and white breath in snowfall, standing closer together for warmth, how no one wanted to go anywhere, but when _she_ did, he had to drive her. There were too few thick candles burning low in the garage, but the ones that did set this pale season aflame as the nights- and their words, and their desires- grew bolder, naked as the trees these days; well, in their _minds_ anyway. His hands, when they did venture below her shoulders, stayed stubbornly at her waist, except during one rather frenzied night (frenzied because Edith had caught her sneaking out and threatened to wake their parents if she wasn't back in twenty minutes. "_But it will take ten minutes for the walk alone_!" Sybil had protested. Edith was unmoved. "_Y_o_u better hurry then_.") when she strode into the garage with a mission and this opening line: "You've got ten minutes."

He quirked an eyebrow. "That's very romantic."

She quirked one back. "Do you want to spend it _talking_?"

He answered by saying nothing; his next words didn't come until minutes later, in the shadow of the back corner of the garage, after his hand slipped unperturbed down her back: "Aren't you wearing a corset?"

"No," she answered, sounding a bit miffed. "I don't like wearing them when I have to, why on earth would I wear one when I don't?" Later, pulling herself up to leave, she leaned in: "It's not the first time either. I'm surprised you never noticed, with all the time you spend staring at me." And grinning, she kissed him near his ear and hurried off, back to the house.

Once (and only once) the wind rattling the garage doors had sent them (at Sybil's insistence and against Tom's better judgment) running to take shelter in the cottage, the weather beating against their faces and stinging their eyes until, laughing, they slammed the door on the cold world, having outrun it for one night at least.

Tom stoked a fire as Sybil ambled around the bedroom (shutters closed tight to eyes and the elements), thinking how much more at home she felt here now, even though it was only her third visit. She knew it wasn't the place per se- it was because she had become habituated with him. Their relationship and their plans with each other was her biggest secret and the duality of her life never ceased to stun her when she would catch, in mealtime conversations or just walking about the house, a remembrance of her future, smiling around questions about the season or next year's shoot or the renovations to make more space in the library. _Yes, but I won't be here for that_.

Mary and Edith knew _of_ the secret, but there was only one person who shared her same omniscience, who saw the Yorkshire daily on the cottage desk and could see a crisp evening edition, atop ink-stained edits, bearing a column by the same hand and a byline with the same name as the couple that occupied the Dublin flat; who looked up now, kneeling by the red-glow of the brazier, and could see in the way her fingers grazed the bedpost _that night-_ the failed wedding, the aborted consummation, the promises and apologies and regret and relief, swirling together in a dirge for lost futures. But what had actually died that night was the falsity of being _friends. _Reborn in its place was honesty, that Edenic state of the early days, the days of _true_ friendship, when they said everything to each other, before the feelings- and that "_flattered"_- forced them into all those unnatural postures of suppression, elusion, evasion, fear.

Tom liked to say, about that time, that _the clutch slipped_, a reference Sybil didn't quite comprehend until one afternoon, in the car by themselves, he looked back at her- "Don't tell your father"- and then slipped the clutch. She was jerked by the halting motion- _how is that possible, a halting motion_?- as the engine lurched and the car didn't, and the acute, unnerving feeling of not being able to accelerate cut through her. It was the same feeling of being chased in a nightmare; she didn't have them often, but that was her most recurring one. She realized she feared nothing more than immobility. "See?" he asked, putting the car back in unison. _Oh yes, _she thought_. I understand perfectly now_.

And in the cottage bedroom on a blustery night, he looked across hot coals as she said, "I couldn't say it before, but I'm glad we never made it to Scotland," with no other explanation. He just smiled and went back to his task- everything in unison, no further explanation needed.

She wandered over to his desk, the locus of the room as evidenced by the stacks of books and notepads, newspapers and loose-leaf that gave it the appearance of an overgrown garden, but closer inspection showed it was incredibly well-ordered. She regarded it all with great interest, like a detective extrapolating the inner-workings of a person's mind from the banal, such as how the ink bottles and editing pencils were arranged, or how the columns were scissor-cut not hand torn. Despite the copious amount of _things_ on it, none of it encroached on the protected space in the center, in front of the chair- the writing space. _A sacred space, _unmolested by clutter. _A free space_- free from the burden of the thoughts and ideas and words of others- _but not empty. A space of possibility, _she thought with satisfaction.

She observed but did not touch (for fear of displacing) the neat piles of clippings- newspaper articles he thought were worth emulating, editorials he thought were not, samples of his own that had not made the cut, a half-dozen copies of the ones that had- all meticulously underlined (_he must use a ruler- Mr. Carson would approve_) and annotated with notes in tidy, even script in the margins: "_needs __historical support_" - "_economic corollary?_" - "_onus probandi."_

"What's _onus probandi_?" she asked, stumbling a little over the Latin.

"It's a type of fallacy," he answered, eyes still on the fire he was tending. "Do you know what a fallacy is?" She said she did not. "It's a flawed argument. If you invoke one, it's like breaking the rules of public debate."

"I didn't know there were rules for public debate."

"Neither do most people, it seems, especially on England's editorial pages," he laughed. "_Onus probandi_ means to shift the burden of proof. You've heard the expression '_the onus is on.'_"

"Oh, of course!"

"_Onus_ is burden- '_the burden is on_.' Shifting the burden of proof means that instead of proving why something is true, you demand someone else prove why it isn't. So, for example, say-"

"Well, doesn't it," she mused, interrupting him.

"Doesn't what?"

"That night we were argu- _debating_ in the garage whether me not telling my family was proof that I was in love with you. You said, 'Well, doesn't it?' Was that a fallacy?"

His cheeks flushed at the memory although, truth be told, he remembered none of that conversation except "_I'm madly in love with you!" _She thought she was being sarcastic (except she never used sarcasm- she was too wonderfully uncynical for it), but he thought she was testing the expression for the first time- saying precedes doing and all- at least he _hoped_ that's what it was; he was abashed now by how much, how desperately much, he had wanted it then to be true. And now, here they were, and it was.

"I don't remember the whole context, but I suppose yes, it was, in a way," he conceded. "I broke the rules. I'm sorry."

Her heart flipped at the little sheepish smile he offered her now- _would it always feel like thi_s? she wondered- and she was abashed remembering how indignant she had been that night in her ignorance about the feelings that were constantly urging her to the garage. "I can't be _too_ mad at you," she replied, coming over to where he was, "since you were right." He had finished with the fire and the room was warming up. "The papers say it's supposed to snow tomorrow- a storm with half a meter of snow."

"I know, I read."

"Better make the most of tonight then." She put her hand to his cheek as she had that first time she touched him _like that_, but this time, she didn't stop there.

Sybil was remembering what had happened afterward the next day as she sat, chin-in-hand, staring glumly at the snow that had blanketed the lawn and was still coming down, an immaculate white carpet unsullied by footprints. Taunting her. This would be her version of hell, never being able to take an unknown or unexposed step. _If our house had been in Scandinavia, I would never have survived_.

Down the lawn, Tom surveyed the snow from the cottage stoop. The garage would be closed- no one could be on the roads today- but that also meant no one could leave the house either, he thought with a sigh. He took a sip of tea from a steaming cup, imagining a line of female footprints leading from the front door of the big, grand house _here, _and chuckled.

When even _nature_ was conspiring to keep them apart, all they could do was laugh.

* * *

><p>But it wasn't <em>all<em> like that.

As the weeks turned into months and the months stretched from fall towards spring, the lack of correspondence to and from Ireland became a point of contention between them.

Sybil knew that every day that passed without a response from the newspaper struck a blow to his core beliefs: that a person could become more than what he had been born, that a chauffeur could be given a chance, that his merits would be considered, despite the fact that he was servant. And she knew, when she regarded the tension in his brow or his shoulders after another silent day, those doubts were becoming increasingly more personal- maybe he wasn't smart enough, talented enough, good enough; maybe he didn't _merit_ consideration. It hurt her to see him, so admirably self-confident in her eyes, have his faith shaken. She wanted to support him, but sometimes it was hard to know how because she also knew he didn't like falling down in front of her.

So she tread carefully and they talked around it. "Any other news?" she would ask lightly at the end of a day, and he would shake his head- _no, there was no letter today- _and change the conversation.

Sometimes, she put her hand on his. "It will work out. I know it will." And while he appreciated her encouragement, he couldn't help be annoyed by the expression of blind, quixotic belief- he wasn't a teenage housemaid and optimism wouldn't pay the rent. _Imagine if I said the same to your father- 'I've no position, but I'm taking your daughter with me anyway- not to worry though, because I know it will work out.' _But he loved her for caring and he didn't want to be cruel, so he almost always said nothing.

Except once, in the doldrums of February, when he had all but conceded the newspaper job was lost and he would have to start looking for work he was more suited for. But he didn't want to be a chauffeur and he didn't want her to be married to a chauffeur. Yes, it would pay the bills and allow them to go, but there was no future in it- not the future they wanted anyway. And the sneering comments that would inevitably follow her- that she had chosen stupidly and had thrown her life away- would be all the worse because he would believe there was some truth in them. "If you say you'll make something of yourself and then you don't, you're either a liar or a failure," he told her, avoiding her eyes. "And don't say you know it will work out. You can't know that."

But she would not accept that. "It _will_ work out," she insisted. "Perhaps not as we imagine, but it will work out somehow. It will have to because when I said yes, I didn't say _if,_" she informed him, "so we will figure something out, together."

She was less generous on another subject. Tom had decided Christmas was not the right time to tell his mother about their engagement- "_It's too soon, we don't expect to leave for awhile yet_"- but what he had declined to mention was that there is no right time to tell his mother he was in love with and wanted to marry a British lord's daughter.

"Have you written your mother yet?" she demanded to know one February afternoon, as he worked under the hood. He knew it was coming; the question had been heralded by the brisk, piercing rhythm of her heels on the cement. No amorous Sybil today. _She must be bored_, he thought, for it was when she was bored that she most acutely felt their post-engagement stagnation.

"I will," he promised, not looking up.

"_Tom_." He knew he had to yield to that tone. He straightened to find her upbraiding him with a stern look that could have rivaled that any of any nun from his school days. "You have to do this. A letter from the paper could come any day- and you cannot show up on her doorstep with a fiancee she's never heard of!"

"I'll write her. Tonight. I promise."

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<strong>

**February 1919**

_He never writes_.

That was her first thought when a letter from her son showed up in the post box in February, a month that contained no Christian or familial holiday. Already, she was wary of its contents.

She went into the kitchen, put the mail on the table and the kettle on the stove- best to have ready a cup of tea, one's first and sometimes only defense in a bad situation. She turned the envelope over in her hands. The address had been conscientiously lettered- not in the usual hasty scrawl of her son, who was usually racing to make the last collection five days before Christmas. _He wrote out the envelope first- a stall tactic_. But her son never hesitated to speak. The kettle started to whistle.

She fixed the tea, set the saucer down and without preamble, sliced open the top of the envelope- a motion of severe efficiency, which everyone who knew her would call characteristic.

Her lips pursed as her eyes scanned the first page. Her son did not filibuster. Yet here were paragraphs about the weather in Yorkshire, anecdotes about the family retriever whose existence he had never mentioned before _because he does not_... The back of the sheet was blank. _He always writes on both sides_. People use both sides of the paper when they don't expect to do revision. He never rewrote his letters from home; if he made a mistake, he would just strike the errant word or phrase and continue.

But not in this letter, apparently. _What could be so important, so grave_- Her heart thumped as she turned to the second page.

_"There is something else, Mam. I've met a remarkable woman- a nurse, born and raised in Yorkshire- and I proposed and she said yes. We want to marry in Dublin and start our life there. Of course, I need to secure a job before we can depart and so I do not have any more details to share today. For the same reason, I have not yet informed anyone in the house of our engagement or my plan to leave England and Lord Grantham's employ. You'll know more when I do, but __I do hope you are pleased by the news and that she'll be welcomed in our home as we prepare for the wedding. I can't wait for you to meet her- she really is incredible_."

So, this was the news: her son and his remarkable, incredible nurse, born and raised in Yorkshire. Her stomach knotted with dread.

_Why would a girl from Yorkshire want to up and move across the sea, away from her country, her home, her family, all she has known, _before_ she marries_?

There was only one reason. _Oh, I will just-_

Palms pressed to the table, she pushed herself out of her chair, and walked to the curio (a gift for her own nuptials eons ago) that towered from the corner over the small, crooked parlor with its faded furniture. From the bottom drawer, she pulled out a bound sheaf of every letter her son had sent her since arriving in England and returned to the kitchen table. She thumbed through the letters, starting at the beginning- his first letter from 1914:

_"The conversation in the house is mostly centered around the eldest daughter and what marriage she will make. __Her reputation as a beauty is deserved, but she does exude all the qualities one would expect from an heiress_."

He was a good employee and as such, spoke with great discretion about the family he served, never using names and offering only the most benign details of the goings-on in the house. She continued to read:

_"There are two other daughters, but no one talks much about them (although in fairness to the youngest, she has not yet made her debut and so there isn't much to say)_."

Three daughters. The eldest was unlikely. More months, more years, more letters and:

_"All the talk here is of the youngest daughter wearing pantaloons to dinner- I half-expected Mr. Carson to fall dead at the sight! She appears to be the mischief-maker of the house."_

_"The staff are sad to lose Gwen, the housemaid and one of the most decent people one could ever meet. She has realized her dream of a secretarial position (with a telephone company). In her words, much credit is due to the youngest daughter, who served as her reference."_

_"The house is chaotic- it's been converted into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, the work of the youngest daughter, who has volunteered as an auxilliary nurse."_

_That's _what she had been looking for. _A nurse, born and raised in Yorkshire_.

She could _kill_ him. All that he had, all he had worked for- a skill, a professional reputation, wages enough that he could save- and he was about to throw it away for a girl who had no need of him and could have anyone and _would _have anyone, no doubt, as soon as she tired of this bit of mischief-making. She would go on to be mistress of a grand house- and what of her son? He would be a grown man, disgraced out of his former employ, seeking work with no references, like a criminal just out of jail!

_And he wants me to _welcome_ her into our house? _Remarkable, incredible_ indeed._

She was not a crier, not by a long shot, but a furious emotion rose up in her throat, strangling the words as she uttered them. "Oh Tom- how _could _you?"


	34. Chapter 34: March 1919

_Thanks as always for the reviews! And thanks to sommertiara for the correction about Sybil's uniform!_

_Quick note on Mrs. Branson- it definitely will not be an easy relationship with Sybil. I'll be curious to see if this is explored in S3, but I actually think Tom has as much to lose as Sybil, I can't imagine he'll have any credibility in Irish politics if people discover the family he's married into._

* * *

><p>The little soft sigh that escaped was, by now, as familiar as his kiss which was presently charting an expeditious path across the curve of her throat, setting up camp just below her ear. <em>I can feel that everywhere<em>, she thought. As someone with a knowledge and interest in human anatomy, she was fascinated by this. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to indulge fully in the sensation. "What a strange place to hide desire," she mused.

"You'd be surprised," he whispered, his breath hot against her skin. These stolen moments in the garage still weren't anything more than kissing but, as she had quickly discovered, that didn't make them strictly innocent either. The distance from kissing to everything else was much, much shorter than she expected (and much less linear, she marveled, with every new sweet spot they uncovered) and it was quite fun to play on the boundary line. _Like now_.

"I don't like surprises," she said, smug in her provocation.

"Don't you?" he countered, his fingers tightening around her waist.

"No." He brought his hand to her cheek, turning her face towards his and then their eyes locked, noses touching, lips reaching-

"Sybil."

"Oh, hush-"

"_SYBIL_!"

She snapped to attention. She was on the sofa, in the sitting room, and it was the middle of the afternoon. _Huh_. And Edith was yelling at her. "We're leaving," she informed Sybil pointedly. Edith shepherded her little sister- still with dazed eyes and a dopey smile- out the front door, where Tom was helping their mother into the car. "_Do_ try to be a little less obvious in front of Mama."

"I don't know what you mean," Sybil responded breezily, her fingers barely touching the chauffeur's as she stepped into the backseat. It was then that Edith saw it- like a deja vu, but from the future; a remembrance of moment not yet lived- in the way Sybil placed her hand in his and the reverential expression that graced his face as he regarded her profile.

_She is going to marry him, _she realized. _A__nd they will look exactly like that when she does. _

* * *

><p>It should have been a mundane afternoon. Tom had an hour to wait while the ladies finished their business in town, which would include a grudging trip to the post office, the site of an eternal return of rejection over the past three months. In winter, he had bounded so hopefully up to the window, asking if there was a letter for him, and coming away empty-handed every time. By spring, he had soured on the task; he stood in line now feeling at odds with the season surrounding him, disheartened by the nascent pink buds in the flower beds along the brick wall trumpeting a new beginning.<p>

When it was his turn, he stepped to the window and, with no expectation, inquired, "Is there any mail for Branson?"

The clerk frowned over the glasses that were perched on his nose. "What's the name again?"

"Tom Branson." The clerk disappeared into the back. It was the same clerk every time. Tom couldn't tell if he truly had no recollection or if this impersonal treatment was just a routine. The English were odd that way.

He was considering this when the clerk reappeared with a large brown envelope bearing a newspaper masthead (the reason Tom had asked for the response letter to be sent here and not to the house). "Here you go," he said, fairly shoving it into the hands of the thunderstruck man in a chauffeur's uniform. It was fat and weighty. _A rejection letter would be just one sheet- it couldn't be that_. He must have looked so stunned that the clerk, with narrowed eyes, demanded he confirm his identity- twice. "You are Branson, right? Tom Branson?"

"That's right," he croaked.

"You have to sign for it." Tom took the pen and did so, the letters a wee bit shakier than usual. He must have written out his own name a hundred thousand times in his life, but as he regarded the newspaper logo on the counter next to the ledger with his signature, he saw it morph into typeset. His name in print. _Holy hell_. Opening a newspaper and seeing his own name on the page- _imagine that_! _Should it be Thomas, not Tom, Branson? _ He should consider it. _Someday, that name could be on something important_.

_Don't get ahead of yourself_, warned the voice in his head, _you haven't even opened it_! But the caution was futile; his old confidence was back.

He walked back to the car wondering if he should wait for Sybil. If this was to be the start of their new life- the _real_ start, after the false start of the failed elopement- then it seemed only fitting to open it together, with her pressed beside him, reading over his shoulder, full of anticipation. _But what if it's a disappointment_? They might be offering him a position oiling the machines, a position more appropriate for his skills and experience._ No, better to make sure first._

As it turned out, the second-largest paper in Dublin did not want him to oil the machines, but to accept a position as junior reporter, covering local news in the hardscrabble neighborhoods north of the city, including the one he was from, a job for which he would be paid 275 pounds per annum starting next month.

* * *

><p>Back at the big grand house, he took Sybil's hand to help her down and whispered the words that would change her life- "It came"- and grinned. But the news was too big to register in that instant, especially with Edith tugging her elbow towards the front door, and she wondered if she had been caught daydreaming again. She looked back to confirm it had happened- that he had really said the words they had waited so long for- and he winked at her.<p>

_It came_.

She had not imagined it. It came, it had arrived, it was here.

It was time to leave.

* * *

><p>He had barely parked the car in the garage when he heard fast footfalls crunching the gravel. He chuckled, wondering what she must have told them to get away so quickly.<p>

"Well, don't keep me in suspense!" she cried, as she hurried across the threshold and came to stand before him in the center of the garage.

"About what?" he teased.

"Oh, I don't know. The weather!" She gave him a playful shove. "Or _the mail_...?"

He broke into a grin and pulled the letter out of his pocket. "See for yourself." She took it eagerly, lowering herself down on the bench as she read it. He hadn't expected her to be so thorough and more than a few minutes passed before she lifted her head and with the sincerest smile exclaimed, "A reporter! Oh, Tom- that's wonderful!"

"Is that the best you can do?" he asked with mock injury. "Gwen got a full leaping hug when she got a new job!" She bit her lip coyly at the memory- _as I recall, Gwen wasn't the only one who got something new that day_- and obliged, jumping into his arms, in some half-laughing delirious joy. He felt the edge of the letter in her hand graze the skin of his neck and a thought struck him: _I have everything I want in the world. I'm holding it, right now. _

He thought back to the conversation they had had- in this very spot-after she came home from nurses' training, when she had remarked on how much time people spending _wanting_ things and how rare it is to find oneself in a place of exquisite peace, free of want, desires satisfied. He overcome by how humbled, how grateful he felt in this moment (funny how success, which should be so prideful, could do that) and the thoughts coursing through his mind as he held her close: _I want _you_ to have everything you want, I want to _be_ everything__ you want. _She felt it and the embrace changed; her arms dropped down around his waist, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, his kiss absently pressing to her forehead, both realizing what this meant- it was so much more than a job, for both of them. _ We stole fire from the gods today, I think. _He chuckled. _Fetch me the matches indeed_.

He felt her tremble a bit in his arms- _was she thinking something similar and laughing as well_- but then, he heard a muffled hiccup and realized she was not laughing, but crying.

"What's this, love?" he asked, easing her back. "Why the tears?"

He tried to get her to look at him, but she kept her eyes to the floor, as if it embarrassed her terribly to have him see her cry. He had only ever seen it twice before, when she left home for the first time and had turned her face to the window so he wouldn't see; and the night of the concert, he wincingly remembered, by the willow tree, when he had begged her forgiveness.

"Come on, tell me," he urged, rubbing her back, which made her pull away, taking a step away from him and towards the wall, where she tried to regain her composure out of his view.

"It's nothing," she said, running her palms over her cheeks.

"It's not nothing." She heaved an exasperated sigh. She did not like being exposed this way, not even to him, all naked emotion and vulnerability; that was _not_ who she was. To which he responded by reaching a handkerchief over her shoulder- "So you don't get your hands all snotty"- and she couldn't help but giggle.

"Thank you," she returned dryly, dabbing her eyes nonetheless. _I wanted a relationship with no pretending. It doesn't get any more honest than that. _

He placed his hands on her shoulders and implored once more, soft and serious, "Tell me?"

She turned to face him, twisting the now-damp cloth in her hands. "Because-" She started to speak, but her voice wobbled and she took a breath before beginning again. "Because you won't always be a chauffeur." She smiled. "You did it, Tom. You really did it. I'm so proud of you. So very proud, and so happy for you."

He appreciated the sentiment- and knowing he had made her proud was worth the world to him- but nonetheless, he didn't think it was her pride in him that had brought her to tears. "What else?" he pressed, touching a finger to her cheek.

She shook her head, but he had read her well and she knew it. "It's just... I realize I'm going to get to have a life," she confessed, "when for so long, I wasn't sure I would." It was the first time she had ever vocalized that fear, the one that made her stomach clench whenever Granny started asking personal questions or when she saw Mary with Sir Richard, the one that gripped her in the postwar mornings when the day stretched before her with nothing to do. _But God, Sybil, really- this isn't about you_. "Look at me," she rued, taking one of his hands in hers and leading them to sit down on the workbench. "I'm sorry. We should be celebrating. Tell me more about the position."

"I will, in a minute." He took her other hand, holding both of her hands in his. "You don't ever have to say sorry to me. I'd be in prison if it weren't for you." Her face argued with the assertion, but he pushed on. "You know it's true. I would have gone through with that stunt with the General and wrecked my life." _I looked at you that day at the table, all that I wanted that I was almost sure I would never have. Al__most, but not quite._ "You confronted me, you kept after me. No one else would have done that. No one else would have cared. And I know I wouldn't have cared enough about anyone else to listen. You made this possible and none of it would mean anything without you. You'll have the life you want," he pledged. "I'll do everything I can to give it to you."

"I don't want you to give it to me," she countered, "just help me get it for myself." He nodded, he understood. _But do you_? "No one else would ever love me enough to do that for me." And just to make sure, she leaned in and kissed him, stroking his face with her hand and the inside of his mouth with her tongue, not caring that it was daylight, that the door was open, or that anyone could walk by and see.


	35. Chapter 35: Late March 1919

_Thanks as always for the reviews, they are very much appreciated!_

_A lot afoot in this chapter- enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong>Late March 1919<strong>

The next two weeks flew by in a whirlwind. Over the years, they had spent many (_many_) hours in the garage making casual conversation, catching up on the day, and just enjoying each other's company; but now, with their departure imminent, they found they had precious little time to make what turned out to be a staggering amount of arrangements. They was no more time to spare simply basking in all their new and ever-expanding, ever-surprising feelings (much to both their chagrins) as their meetings became rapid-fire planning sessions revolving around work, money, where to live, and what to tell their families.

It was during this time that Sybil started to realize that however difficult she had imagined their new life in Ireland would be, it was going to be much, _much_ harder than that.

And difficulty, apparently, began at home.

"Have you heard back from your mother yet?" Sybil asked one late afternoon coming into the garage, where Tom was working underneath the carriage. "It's been two weeks."

He did not answer her immediately, but finished whatever adjustments he was making before he slid out, an unreadable expression on his face. "Actually, her reply came in the mail yesterday."

"Why didn't you tell me? What did she say?" Again, he demured, as he hunted for a cloth to wipe his hands. "It wasn't good, was it?" she deduced, her face falling.

"It was one sentence." He let out a little caustic laugh. "'_Write when you're prepared to tell me the truth_.'"

She had no idea what to make of _that_. "Goodness." She leaned back on her hands against the shelf, thinking, aware that he was studying her reaction. She had helped him write the original letter, carefully parsing the phrases, agreeing it was best to ease his mother into the news that he was engaged before revealing exactly who he was engaged_ to_. _Perhaps it wasn't entirely honest, but._.. She looked over at him. "Nothing you wrote was _untrue_."

"No," he concurred, "and she saw right through it." He tossed the oilcloth down. "That's my mother for you."

She assumed he was upset on her behalf, afraid she was offended or saddened or shocked by his mother's reception (or lack thereof). The truth was, she didn't care that much; after all, she had never met the woman. It was mostly inconvenient. And when she was anxiously facing the very real prospect of being cut off from her own beloved parents, she couldn't muster too much emotion over his. "You'll just have to tell her then," she shrugged.

"I know. I've been thinking about what to say."

"What have you come up with?"

"_You won't like this, but_..." He laughed. "That's as far as I got. But I'm open to suggestions."

"I don't mean to sound cold, but we don't need her permission or her approval, her forgiveness or her embrace. We _are_ moving to Dublin and we _are_ getting married, regardless of whether she gives us any of that or not." It was at this point that he looked away- first at the floor, then to the ceiling, then turning around and fussing with things on the table. _This is not how he wanted it to go. _She knew and she understood. _But this is the way it is_. She pushed on. "All we need to know is if I can live with her those first few weeks while we wait for the banns. It's a yes or no question. And we'll make plans based on her answer."

He didn't respond, starting instead to rearrange the tools that he would soon no longer be using, as if it required all of his focus and concentration. _It's good to know I'm not the only one of us who sulks_, she thought, biting back a smile. She tipped her head to the side. "It's alright if she says no, Tom. As you've said about my family, the first answer might not be the final one." She didn't believe that when he said it to her and she didn't really believe it now, though that didn't stop her from saying it with the same quixotic verve. "She'll get to know me once we're there and in the meantime, I can stay somewhere else. It's a big city- surely there must be a rooming house for women."

"You're not going to stay in a rooming house with a bunch of strangers. This is where I'm _from_."

Sybil didn't want to argue about a hypothetical; she wanted to stay focused on the task at hand, the letter. She decided to change tack. "May I write something?"

"From you?"

"Yes, just a short note. I can put it in with yours. I'll introduce myself and tell her, you know, that I'm clean and quiet and have nice table manners and know how to make a bed. The sort of thing she would want to know about a houseguest."

"A daughter-in-law," he corrected pointedly.

"Right!" She stepped over to him and laid a hand on his forearm, staying his activity; he turned, contrite, to face her. "I'll be sure to flatter her terribly by telling her how handsome and marvelous I think you are," she vowed, sweeping back his hair. "See? We have so much in common already!" That elicited a smile; her optimism was infectious. "But truly, I think a note from me would help," she said, turning serious. "Then I wouldn't be some strange Lady with an unimaginable life. I'd be a real person."

"Alright then." He reached for her hand. "Thank you."

"I do possess unusually strong powers of persuasion," she offered with a flirtatious glance upward.

"Don't I know it!" There was something alchemic about the swing of their hands, their laughter and the late afternoon sun; they caught themselves in a moment and she felt the familiar flutter of expectation as he leaned in to kiss her with only a brief look towards the door.

After they broke apart, she asked, "Now, what do you plan to tell her? This time around, I mean."

"I'll tell her that I wasn't trying to be cute by not saying it outright. We know this isn't going to go over well with either of our families, but we don't care. We love each other and this is what we want."

"Don't say you 'don't care,'" she frowned. "She's your mother- _of course_ you care. _Of course_ you would be elated if she accepted us. You're just prepared for the possibility that she won't."

He crossed his arms and posed, with amusement, "So should I plan to give you all my stories to edit, so you can catch all the stupid mistakes like you did just now?"

"Couldn't hurt," she replied with a grin.

* * *

><p>Then there was the issue of money.<p>

Not just cash- which Sybil had never carried, with the exception of the small amount she had taken with her to the training college in York- but income and class and expectations and prejudices. All the things she didn't think about because she didn't _have_ to think about them until someone like Gwen or Dr. Clarkson or a certain ambitious chauffeur reminded what was what in the world.

She knew of hardship, but hardship was a place with very clearly delineated borders from her own world: touring the cottages where working people lived or on a carefully guided visit to view the improvements to the borstal, walking past delinquent peers with downcast eyes who had drawn very different lots in life from her. She had a good heart and an abundance of empathy. She felt injustice keenly. But she didn't quite understand the _concept_ of class, how pervasive and poisonous and relentless it was, until the day she brought up finding a flat.

It was night and they were sitting by candlelight in the back of the garage... reading. Specifically, last week's newspapers from Dublin, which his brother had sent at his request. Sybil was browsing the classified section, stoking her imagination about her new city with listings for hospital jobs, row houses and flats on unfamiliar streets, advertisements for furniture and cookery, clothes (much smarter than the impractical attire of Downton), political plays, concerts and public events. It all sounded so _very_ exciting.

"You'll be reporting on the neighborhoods north of the city?"

He was engrossed in an investigative piece about a local political outfit. "That's right."

"And that's where you grew up?"

"'Tis."

"Maybe we should find a flat there, then," she proposed. "Be close to the action."

He looked up at her as if she had grown a second head. "We're not moving there."

"Why?"

"Because we're not poor," he answered, voice strange. "No one lives in that neighborhood if they don't have to."

"But your mother lives there."

"Yes and so do most of my relations." He realized the time and started re-folding his paper. "Better get going love, it's late." He kissed her- they both liked how quotidian their affection could be now, it showed how far they had come- and rose, gathering up the scattered news pages. "My mother will never leave. Too stubborn and set in her ways. She was born there and she'll die there- that's what she says anyway."

"Is it dangerous?" she asked, getting up to follow him.

"Not the block where I'm from, no. It's not a slum. It's just poor." He retrieved her discarded sweater from the workbench. "Blow out the candle, will you, and I'll walk you back."

She did as he asked, but did not let the subject drop. "But if it's where your work will be and where your family is..." He turned, surprised she was still on about it. "You know I don't care about money."

"Don't say that, love. I know what you mean, but only rich people can say they don't care about money. Poor people care very much about it. They have to."

"I mean, we don't need to live somewhere fancy."

"That's good, because we can't afford _fancy_," he smiled. "But we can't live in my old neighborhood either. It'll be fine for a few weeks while we get settled, but it's not the place for us. Even if it were nice- which it isn't- I couldn't go back there, with my big new job, flashing money around like I'm His Lordship."

The caricature of Tom as some kind of robber baron- complete with a top hat and snout, money falling out of his pockets like in editorial cartoons- was so preposterous that she laughed out loud. "I think you're hardly the sort to flash money! Besides, as you said, we won't exactly be rich."

He shook his head; she didn't get it. "Any amount of money is a lot to people who don't have any," he said quietly. Then, not wanting her to feel bad, he took her hand and offered gamely, "We'll find a nice neighborhood. Maybe near the university." He kept talking, but she couldn't stop thinking about his previous comment- "_people who don't have any"- _aware that there would be more to learn than street names.

* * *

><p>Later that week, Tom dropped a piece of news that shocked Sybil: he had written back to the newspaper, but he had not formally accepted the reporter job.<p>

"_What_?" she asked, certain she had misheard him. "Why in the world not?"

"It's 275 pounds per annum, which would be excellent, but there's a catch. It's not a salary," he explained. "Junior reporters are paid by the story, but that's just a rough estimate of what one _might_ make in a year."

This information did not make it less confusing to Sybil. "So...?"

"Well, I would be a local reporter. _So_, what if the article about sewer improvements is cut from the late edition, would I put on another story? And if, as I suspect, national politics starts to eclipse local council meetings and debates about where to install a new telephone pole or municipal taxes, can I be reassigned? I need to know all of that before I can accept."

She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "The paper took a chance on you- and chance you've been desperate for- and you told them _maybe_?"

"I don't know what kind of chance it is and neither do you," he retorted. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

"It's an opportunity regardless!"

"It's a freelance position. They could a hire a hundred reporters a day, what does it matter if they only have to pay for what's published?"

She was stunned to hear him sounding so utterly _defeatist_, as Granny would say. "Well, I think it was a _very_ poor decision!" she huffed.

"Sybil, I can't take a job with not enough work, and I can't work and not get paid," he fired back. "This is the real world, not the one where you put food on the table by ringing the dinner bell!"

* * *

><p>Sybil had actually gotten the last word in that conversation- the first expletive she'd spoken since the hospital to be exact- but she was still stewing over it when her sisters came to fetch her, ironically, for dinner.<p>

There was no mistaking her mood when they entered her room. "Must be trouble in paradise," Mary muttered under her breath to Edith. "Hello, darling."

Sybil shot them a look in the mirror, before angrily replacing her cologne bottle on the vanity. Her older sisters exchanged hopeful glances. _Perhaps this business with Branson has finally come to an end_?

"Something wrong?" Edith ventured.

"You wouldn't understand," Sybil answered shortly.

Mary caught Edith's eye again and nodded towards the door; Edith took the cue and made a quiet and unseen exit. Mary sat down on the end of the bed. "Try _me_."

Sybil turned around, mildly surprised to find it was now just the two of them. Mary watched Sybil as she continued to ready for dinner, silently putting on hand cream and picking out earrings. As the minutes passed, Sybil's fury seemed to abate, replaced by regret and unsurety. Mary intuited resignedly that Sybil had not broken with him.

This was confirmed when Sybil finally spoke. "Do you ever fight with Richard?"

Mary heard the slight catch in Sybil's earnest question, her fear of the answer, and Mary was reminded, as she had been that night at the inn, how young Sybil was. She could have said- _No, __never,__ fighting is proof it's not love and an omen of a ruinous marriage-_ but like that night, she could not exploit her sister's trust and deliver a crushing blow to her ill-fated romance. "I don't know that we _fight_, but we have disagreements," she admitted and, seeing Sybil was not fully convinced, added with a sigh, "It's perfectly normal. All couples do."

Sybil contemplated that for a bit, leading Mary to feel she_ had_ to ask, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Not really."

"We should get downstairs then." She got up and came behind Sybil, placing her hands on her shoulders. "You sound like you've had quite a day, you don't need a lecture from Papa on top of it."

"Mary? How do you end a fight- a disagreement?"

"You say that you're sorry."

"But I don't think I was in the wrong."

"One rarely does," Mary rued. "But you're sorry you fought, aren't you? So start there." Sybil rolled her eyes, dismayed. _Am I really giving relationship advice for the chauffeur?_ Mary thought_.__ Good God. _"Those are your choices, I'm afraid. You can sit here and pout and wait for Branson to knock on your door- and hope Papa doesn't shoot him as he's coming up the stairs- or you can swallow your pride and start the conversation. It's up to you."

"I suppose you have a point," Sybil conceded, unable to suppress a smile.

"When you_ don't_ want to make up is when you should start to worry." Mary declined to mention that was her experience in disagreeing with Richard.

"Thank you, Mary." Her little sister embraced her; Sybil didn't need to wait for the morning for everything to look better, a few minutes was all it took, _only an unburdened heart could lift so quickly_.

"Sometimes I feel sorry for you," Sybil remarked as they left the room, "not having an older sister to confide in and answer all your questions!"

Mary thought about that as Sybil lied during dessert about having a headache and headed off for the garage or the chauffeur's cottage or wherever they held their clandestine rendez-vous. She thought about it when Sybil came in to say goodnight- long after she and Edith had turned in, Mary was sure to note- humming and full of grateful praise for her expert advice until Mary could bear it no more. "Your health seems miraculously restored," she observed sarcastically. "Do you ever worry Mama and Papa will discover your little ruse?"

Sybil just laughed, remembering the night all three daughters and both cars had disappeared completely unnoticed. "They're not the most observant people, are they?"

"No," Mary smiled in agreement. _You don't even know how true that is_. She patted the spot on the bed next to her. "Should I make room?" It had been awhile since she and Sybil had held one of their witching hour bonding sessions.

Her sister answered with a yawn. "No, I'm terribly tired."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "I dare not ask why, I assume."

"Mary!" But Sybil was in too good spirits to do more than feign being affronted. "We're not doing anything. Of course, we kiss- we're _engaged_- but that's all. Mostly." She slipped that last bit in with a wicked grin and Mary felt a sudden pang of sadness. _It would be fun to be married with Sybil_. The company of her sister and her husband- not _him_, but the MP or philanthropist or whomever she _would_ have married- could brighten up life even at dreadful Haxby. But she would never get to meet the man her sister would have chosen; as much as she wanted to deny it, she had known since Sybil's promise of loyalty at the inn that marrying the chauffeur was a fait accompli. And Sybil would be ostracized from their social world, but not before she had left it all behind on a boat, without a care, for a world of her own. _Am I to lose all of my confidantes? _Mary wondered.

"Goodnight," Sybil said. She gave her a kiss and whispered, "I'm very glad I have you."

_Me too, _Mary thought with an inward sigh_. __Me too._

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<strong>

**Late March 1919**

Mrs. Branson sat again at the kitchen table with an empty teacup, an idle pen, and a shred of red-tinged newspaper wrapped around her index finger. She had given herself a paper cut worrying the edge of the letter that had arrived this evening.

_I was right_. _  
><em>

The story was predictable and no less incensing: her son and the _Lord's daughter_ had started talking one day- in gross subversion of the house rules- and struck up a friendship and after she became a war nurse he realized that, despite her station, she possessed all the qualities he could ever want in a wife and so he asked her to marry him and she said yes and they're in love and that's what matters.

_What was he to say, really_?

_Oh, but Mam, she's _different. _  
><em>

She had cackled at that. Cackled, because it reminded her of an article she had read a few years back about a serial murderer in the Monto. After the police finally caught the man, the reporters went round his street and talked to his old teachers and cousins and neighbors. _Do you know what they said_? He wasn't like the rest of them. _He was different_.

She thought conformity was not a bad thing. _It certainly makes for an easier life than abberation._

She pondered that as she re-read the short enclosed card from the _remarkable, incredible_ abberation. She had said all the right things- the things an eager-to-please fiancee should say to get in good graces with her future mother in law. She had a name now- _Sybil_, as she had signed her note- although that was a lie, it was _Lady_ Sybil. Of course, her son couldn't choose a Patricia or Mary or Annie- names she had at least _heard _around here_. _She couldn't imagine the stares she would get if she went out to the stoop right now and started shouting for _Sybil_ down the street.

She had spent the last two hours agonizing about her reply. She was not a person who self-censored- certainly not to her own children- but she knew whatever she wrote would be read by _her_. So she limited herself to two paragraphs, the gist of which was: you're incredibly foolish and naive, you're making a terrible mistake, you'll come to regret it...

_"But this is still your home._ _And while it is certainly not the living conditions your bride is accustomed to, she can stay here if you wish_."

* * *

><p>"That's all we needed," Sybil announced triumphantly. Tom, however, was unconvinced.<p>

If he only knew how _his_ future in-laws would take the news.


	36. Chapter 36: April 1919 Part I

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! _

_We're back to the show timeline- 2x08._

* * *

><p><strong>April 1919<strong>

_It's too bloody tight._

Tom reached to loosen the knot of his necktie, but then thought the better of it- he didn't want to look unkempt in front of her family. But it was too tight and once he'd noticed it, he couldn't _un_notice it and now it was not only the offending clothing but the restraint he had to show toward it that was bugging him.

So he shoved his hands in his pockets and resumed pacing about in the shadows between two darkened windows of the big grand house, waiting for dinner to be over and trying to ignore the pinching around his neck. She said to watch for the dining room light to go out, it would mean her father had come to join them in the parlor. The light was still on. _ It seems I'm forever to be watching in windows for Sybil Crawley, _he thought with a smile.

_No, not forever. Not anymore, in fact. _

He heard a loud _crack_ and nearly jumped in spite of himself (he couldn't very well explain being caught lurking under the house windows). But it was just a fox running over a breaking branch. It stared at him with red eyes before darting off. He ran a hand under his collar.

He could not understand why the tie was bothering him, a grown man who wore one every day as part of his livery, as much as it had when he was still in short pants, fidgeting in the pews with his mother slapping his arm to sit still during those interminable Sunday masses. _And God_, Good Friday, which was three times as long and which, he and his brother proclaimed while making the gangplank walk to church, was sure to kill them both with boredom. _"Have some respect!"_ his mother had berated them. _"Jesus Christ died on the cross for you!"_ As ever, he didn't miss a beat before quipping back, _"Wish I'd been with him."_

He laughed now at the memory- his mother's shock, Liam cracking up, both hands covering his mouth. Thank the Lord they were in public or his mother would have strung him up with that tie. _Or worse_, he rued as the priest droned on in Latin and his mind conjured gruesome punishments he was sure to face once they filed out. He had started reciting Hail Marys on the walk home in defiance of his mother's order that he not speak a word- "_I'm asking the Blessed Mother for mercy!_" he had protested. "_You'd better be_," his mother had replied.

It occurred to him only now, remembering his mother as she was that afternoon, how young and vibrant she was- never beautiful, but strong and bursting with life, a classic Irish girl- that she would have been just a few years older than him that day, thirty or thirty-one, with a houseful of children, an absentee husband, working various odd jobs (at that time as as a laundress, for whom a good day meant not coming home burned or blind), scraping to fulfill a never-ending list of needs, always an illness or accident away from destitution. His life as a chauffeur at Downton was luxurious compared to the one she had lived. That's why she had pushed him- through school for as long as she could and then when she couldn't, to find not _work,_ but a profession. "_You make something of yourself_," she had so often commanded, as if the words themselves were a talisman.

Then again, maybe they had been. Look where he was. Look what he was about to do.

_You did all right Mam,__ even if you don't believe it right now_.

He wasn't the sort to wax nostalgic and he wondered why he was now. _Ah, well._ It had been a crazed day- the conversation with Sybil and the hastily-made plan for tonight, then racing to clean the garage and pack up the cottage, then dressing and coming up here to the house. And after all that activity, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and allow his mind to drift, as it seemed to want to do right now, between Downton and Dublin.

* * *

><p>There was one time- and one time only- that Mary found herself grateful for Lavinia. She was even <em>almost<em> grateful that, in just a few days, Lavinia and Matthew were getting married. _God knows how we would have survived this dinner without them_. The known bride-to-be kept the attention away from the _unknown _bride-to-be, fielding questions from Papa, Mama, and Granny about the flower scheme and the final fitting and a guest list that included relatives so distant she would not be able to identify them on sight. Papa was clearly overjoyed at the upcoming wedding of the son he always wanted and finally had, while Mama was trying- and failing miserably- to make her feel better by asking stupid questions about _her_ impending nuptials, which she was doing her damnedest to ignore.

Now, Lavinia is going on about her father and how she fears she'll cry when he walks her down the aisle._ Good grief. _Mama's eyes are welling up._ Predictable. _And now Papa is casting misty looks around the table at the three of them. _Oh, for God's sake!_

_Is Sybil listening to any of this_? she wondered, stealing a glance down the table. _No_. As usual, she was not paying the least bit of attention. Mary was taken aback to catch Matthew, next to Sybil, probing her with his eyes. _He knows something is wrong. _She returned her attention to her untouched plate and sighed._ He always does._

* * *

><p><em>God, if Mam heard Sybil say she wanted to find a flat in the old neighborhood, she'd drown herself in the Liffe<em>y. His mother would never believe it, but they were alike- the same irrepressible, indefatigable spirit, sharpness and humor; but where his mother's life had made her skeptical and hard, Sybil's had made her sweet and hopeful. He loved that, he needed that. The world was demoralizing enough on its own; it needed all the antidote it could get.

He realized then he had forgotten about the tie. When he thought about her, the vexation faded.

Of course, now that he'd thought about it again, it was back.

He had re-tied it three times at the cottage to no avail, while the metronomic march of the clock kept time with his thoughts, wondering what mood Lord Grantham was in, what course were they on, what if dinner ended early, _what is she thinking right now_? He wasn't sure she was ready for this, for the possible consequences. She had only decided this morning that she wanted it to be tonight, after he told her about the letter from the deputy editor- handwritten, not typed by a secretary- a personal appeal to_ take the reporter job, you'll move quickly up the ranks and have a chance to make a career for yourself, trust me._

"I have to hand in my notice, they want me to start in two weeks. But if you're not quite ready-"

She stopped him abruptly. "I'm going with you."

_But Mr. Matthew's wedding... Matthew has been through so much... and Isobel's done so much for me... you can't ruin her only son's wedding... I can't ruin their wedding... But they might not let me stay... _

"But if they do..." Sybil was more thinking than talking now. "Someday, Matthew will run Downton." And despite the unfinished sentences, Tom understood perfectly the wistful calculation she was making. _Perhaps when he does, he will accept us_.

So she resigned herself to the plan. He would pack, they would tell her parents, and he would take a room in town tonight; tomorrow, he'd take the train to the coast to catch the boat to Dublin and she would follow him in a week.

She started to venture the great unspoken _what-if_, but he interrupted her. "Then you'll come with me tonight. End of story." He touched her cheek softly. "Please don't worry about that. Your parents love you."

"I know, but-" She decided to take his advice and not dwell on it, at least not until she was forced to anyway. "I never imagined I'd see Ireland for the first time without you."

"You won't have to. I'll come to Liverpool and ride over with you," he offered.

"That's silly," she said, playing abashedly with his buttons, but quite clearly pleased with the idea. "It's a waste of money."

"I'll come to Liverpool," he resolved, embracing her, "and we'll see it together."

"I will miss you," she sighed against his chest, "even if it's only for a week."

"My darling girl," he sighed back, using an endearment that her people would use, hoping it would be a comfort to her now. "We'll get there soon enough."

* * *

><p>Edith felt sick to her stomach. She poked at the mass of unconsumed salmon on her plate. How could she eat when Sybil was about to end their family? She sneaked a look at her sisters. Mary was staring vacantly into her wine glass. <em>She's as terrified as I am<em>. Mama and Granny were watching Mary too, fretting about her demeanor. _They must assume it's something to do with Matthew. For once, they're wrong._ Papa was oblivious, as usual, while Sybil was chewing thoughtfully, impervious to the conversations- internal and external, spoken and not-swirling around her.

_Does nothing bother her_?

The thing about her and Sybil was, for all of Mary's obnoxious, outward professions of adoration and kinship to their little sister, _she_ and Sybil had spent far more time together as children. She had been stuck in the nursery with the family baby while Mary, the favored firstborn, was always invited to join the adults. Adults _loved_ Mary- "So _clever_! So _precocious_! So _beautiful_!"- and nothing made her parents prouder than seeing their perfectly-mannered daughter preen in front of their friends and acquaintances. So Mary became Papa's right-hand girl, Mary needed to know how to run the estate, Mary was brought along while Edith was left behind to play with Sybil.

Sybil had neither need nor want of Edith as a playmate. She was a strange child. She only had two settings: entirely quiet and untroublesome, one who could play alone for hours without interruption (she _hated_ being interrupted) with only her own imagination for company; or, she was a hellion. She really had no in-between. Edith was nothing _but_ in-between. And Edith resented Sybil's disinterest in her- she was her _older sister_ after all. Did birth order not demand some deference? But Sybil was far braver, far more daring, far more audacious that Edith would ever be- she was just born that way.

Sybil was camped in the corner, her back towards Edith, with a tea set, which she insisted was not for tea but for a magic potion, although she had refused to tell Edith what the potion was for. In retribution, Edith had taken to launching tiddlywinks over her, trying to hit her cups, but this was starting to bore her as it was so far, failing to get a rise out of her seven-year-old sister. _"Want to play a game?" _

_"No."_

_"You're no fun__."_

_"I'm busy. Stop bothering me."_

_"Want to go outside?"_

_"No."_

_"Explore the house?"_

_"No!"_

_"Did you know there's a secret room?"_

Sybil head shot up_. "A secret room?"_

When the clock chimed noontime, the old nurse hobbled to the bathroom to take her pills ("It's the same every day," Sybil informed her and Edith wondered what else she knew about the goings-on in the house) and the sisters made a break for it. Edith started to run towards the east wing of the house, but Sybil went the opposite way, tugged out one of her hair ribbons and dropped it on the floor. "It'll be a week before she finds us," Sybil said with a roll of her eyes. "You have quite the criminal mind," Edith observed. Sybil beamed at the compliment.

At the end of the hall- further than either of them had ever traversed- they found it. Of course, the door was locked and of course, Sybil was undeterred. "There's more than one way in." And before she knew it, Edith found herself in an empty bedroom in the bachelor's corridor one floor below, stomach churning as she watched Sybil, kneeling on a chair, peer up the dumbwaiter shaft.

"I'm going in," she announced.

"You can't!" Edith cried. "You'll fall!"

She put one precarious shoe into the blackness. "No, I won't."

"Sybil, no. NO! I'm telling."

Sybil shrugged. "Go ahead." Both legs were in now, as she tried to find her footing on the shaft's skeleton that she insisted could be ascended like a ladder. Sybil was an ace climber- she had the ruined tights and dresses to prove it- but that was outside, in broad daylight, with Mary or some adult within shouting distance. This was dangerous and if something bad happened, Edith would be blamed for it.

"You'll break your neck! And if you don't, Papa will do it for you!"

"No, he won't. He'll yell at me and what of it? What else can he do? Nothing."

She had a point, as Edith couldn't think of what else Papa would actually do. "You'll- you'll never get dessert again!" she countered weakly.

"Of course I will. Anyway, Papa's not going to find out. Don't be so_ afraid_ all the time!"

And that's how Edith came to find herself scaling the woodwork inside the dumbwaiter shaft (which was fairly like a ladder and not too scary as long as she didn't look down) and stumbling into the secret room, nearly falling onto her sister. They hid there all afternoon, laughing as they heard the staff searching the halls, and later sitting stone-faced and contrite as Papa read them the riot act for disappearing and nearly giving the old nurse a heart attack and sent them to both to bed with no dinner.

That night, Sybil came to her room, pulled two cookies out of her bathrobe pocket- _how in the world?_- and handed one to Edith. "See?" Sybil said, as they sat munching contentedly on the floor, wondering what else there was to discover. "It wasn't so bad."

Edith wanted to believe that experience would prove instructive, but she had a sinking suspicion that no one would be saying that tonight.

* * *

><p>This was the next step. Or the first step- the first <em>official<em> step- depending on how one was keeping count. They would tell the world about their engagement, their plan, his employment would surely be terminated, effective immediately, he would collect his belongings and head for the hotel.

He checked again; the light was still on.

And yes, this tie still felt like a bloody noose.

He concentrated on the little speech he had prepared (not that he thought for a second her father would let him make it, but nevertheless, it was right to have one) and steeled himself for what awaited behind the imposing front doors.

_What's with this door anyway_?

He had seen it thousands of times, but only now did he really notice the two black dragons flanking the stoop, the two wolves with barred teeth guarding the door. _Not that one could reach them to knock_. That was merely an architectural trick of grand houses- put things a little too high- _out of reach_- to make people feel smaller.

Wolf heads with barred teeth. Nice thing to put on the door. Welcoming.

_It's a message alright, but welcome isn't it._

He had not fathomed that, in the context of all that was about to happen, the minute in which his courage would falter would be this one: entering the house. But he had never walked through the front door, not ever, not even when he helped moved beds and boxes into the convalescent ward. He was not allowed to walk through the front door. No one had ever told him that explicitly, but that's because no one ever had to; of course he wasn't. The chauffeur wasn't welcome in the house. And when, for some reason, his services were needed inside or if he came to borrow a book, he entered by the back stairs and was escorted to and from his errand by one of the house staff.

_What if someone is on the other side? What if Mr. Carson is there?_

He couldn't very well say he had been invited by Lady Sybil, for the occasion of announcing their engagement to her family in the parlor after dinner. He couldn't explain that's what _she_ wanted- for him into come to the parlor tonight- or express how touched he had been by her ask this morning. She wanted to tell them together. She wanted him to stand beside her and to take her hand. _We have no reason to be ashamed,_ she had said; he had a reporter job lined up in Dublin and they had a plan. This was happy news_. We should be_ _happy- proud and happy - to tell it, as any couple would_.

He had no delusions that Lord and Lady Grantham would be neither proud nor pleased by the development, but Sybil seemed to truly care about announcing it to her family together and it was the least he could do when she had forfeited any ideas of a grand wedding day in deciding to walk down the aisle with him.

He didn't fear the inevitable confrontation. He could handle Lord Grantham's wrath and recriminations. They were in love and he had no doubt they were in the right. He worried a bit for Sybil, but not too much. She loved her parents but derived strength and even a perverse satisfaction from standing up to them. It suited her to upset the order of things. He smiled at that. _What am I in for_?

But nevermind their marriage. _What are we in for tonight_?

The wolves stared back at him.

* * *

><p>She had asked Tom to come in after dinner. She took a final bite and surveyed her empty plate. <em>I've done my part to move this meal along<em>. Her sisters had barely touched their food. _I do wish they would stop staring at me_.

After what seemed an eternity, the women rose and went to the parlor.

"You girls certainly are quiet tonight," Mama remarked.

* * *

><p>His trunk was packed.<p>

The cottage was swept, the dishes were put away, the bed was stripped. He would have had the sheets washed, but ran out of time. _Oh, well. You can only do what you can do_.

He had to report to work in two weeks. It was unbelievable. Two weeks from tonight, he would be likely be leaving the newspaper office after his first day. He might be relieved or terrified or exhilarated or all of that. And he would be going home to tell Sybil all about it. She'll be inside, waiting for him.

Like she was inside, waiting for him right now.

_In two weeks' time, all this will be behind us and none of it will matter_.

He strode boldly to the doors of the big, grand house and walked inside.

* * *

><p><em>The cognac is exceptional tonight, <em>Robert thought_. _It was the perfect end to what had been an all-round delightful evening. He was so pleased, _so_ pleased, for Matthew. His future had been restored. And Robert could now breathe a sigh of relief, for the war had mostly spared his family.

All was well in the world.

* * *

><p>Tom felt the tie again, oppressive and hot and through his shirt. <em>It doesn't fit<em>, he thought, staring back at the hostile room.

* * *

><p>There was one time- one moment <em>only- <em>in this whole terrible mess Sybil had set in motion that Edith found herself in the chauffeur's corner.

"You've asked me to come, and I've come." Something about his voice, the entreaty within, the bare-laid fear that she was about to desert him again as she had at the inn, the _chin-up_ness he was putting on, courage (false or not) in the face of certain ridicule from the room. She recognized that feeling, damn it, and in that moment and that moment only, Edith found herself silently willing her sister to do that which she did not want her to do:

_Sybil, no. You're better than that. You're braver than that_.

And in the next minute, Sybil remembered it too.


	37. Chapter 37: April 1919 Part II

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! T_he highest of fives to everyone who is relishing Robert schadenfreude. ___And thanks for the correction about no raccoons in England (learn something new every day...) on the last chapter. _

_A big thank you to Chickwriter for her brilliant solution to an impossible problem in this chapter._

_It's about time for this public service announcement that you may want to revisit the author's note in chapter 27... ;) _

* * *

><p><strong>April 1919<strong>

_Driving. It must be about driving, yes. _That's what Robert thought as he watched Sybil stand up and walk over to the chauffeur. _This driving mania_, as his mother had coined it. _Now she wants lessons too_. She's doing it now to outnumber him. Edith will support the idea, for obvious reasons, and Mary always sides with Sybil. Cora will give in because she always does when it comes to their girls. He'll have to say no, of course- even if Matthew admires Sybil's verve and Mama is amused at how she managed to convince the chauffeur to put on a suit and come make the case for women's rights of the road. But he'll still say no, because _we're not at war anymore_ and these girls- nay, _women _(though that word always triggers a little constriction of his heart), _their_ girls at any rate- are the daughters of the Right Honorable Lord and Lady Grantham, not a roving band of Yorkshire lorrymen, coming and going about town as they please. And Sybil has had her way plenty over the years- too much, in his opinion- and she must learn she can't always get what she wants.

He didn't see- _couldn't_ see- what the women in the room knew, that this was not about driving, had never been about driving. He did not see Mary and Edith turn their eyes to the floor, his mother brace herself, his wife blanch as she watched her daughter step to Branson and whisper something to him.

Immediately, Cora _knew_- they_ all_ knew, all the women at least- from his suit, his nerves, her whisper, their proximity, the way his eyes followed her as she turned, the emotion that clouded her face, almost unrecognizable on her child: _fear_.

_No, no, please no, don't let her be_-

She looked to her husband, for an anchor- for her, for him, for their daughter- to send a message- _unconditional-_tapped out like a code to the seconds ticking from the clock into the silence of the room. She had lived through this once. She knew what had to be done,_ think of the birthdays and kisses and sleepless nights_, summon all those memories now like an army, as she had in the wake of Mr. Pamuk: standing over her firstborn, just three weeks old, running a low fever for the first time, her hand trembling over the soft black hair as the mildly-exasperated doctor explained again to the overwrought new mother that this was "_expected_" and "_normal_" and she wanted to cry out that there was _nothing _normal about this feeling, _I can't do this, I can't love this much because what if something goes wrong_.

_We have never loved more than these children, we have never feared more than losing these children. Remember that, Robert- please._

But Robert, with his cognac and confused expression, did not know and so had no defenses at the ready when Violet shattered the tension in the room, demanding that _if the sword must fall, swing it now_. "Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Of course, Violet knew too. Cora would have shot her a glare, or turned to see why she felt Mary bristle beside her, but she couldn't stop looking at Sybil, her face as earnest and frank as ever, eyes sweeping the floor as she took a shallow breath.

"Something's happened," she began. The words were timid, but her voice was not. "Something wonderful- at least, we think it's wonderful." She turned and looked at him and then there was no mistaking the kinetic familiarity sparking between them; not even Robert mistook it. And Cora watched as her daughter metamorphosed- expression softening, shoulders slackening, mouth curling, all unconscious, all in unison, under his gaze. _She's in love_, she thought. She had seen it on Mary talking about sandwiches, maybe even a bit on Edith (though that was more of a crush), and now Sybil. Her first response, involuntary and in spite of everything, sprung from both maternal and feminine instinct, was _he better love her_.

Cora closed her eyes and recalled the words she had hoped she would never need again: _I will not disown my daughter. Not even if._

"You see, we've fallen in love and Tom's asked me to marry him and I said yes."

The room was silent for so long that Sybil started to wonder if she had confessed it only in her head. They were all just staring at her- her parents, Granny, Carson. Mary and Edith wouldn't look at her, of course; Matthew and Lavinia both appeared to be pleading with the floor to swallow them whole. She wished Tom would take her hand- so they could _see_- but he seemed understandably paralyzed by the reaction of the room. Her corset started to feel too tight, a sign that she felt provoked, her adrenaline was releasing, she was ready to fight. _I hate this place. I hate how it makes me feel, _caged and resentful_. _She hadn't expected champagne or congratulations, but these past six months had been dedicated to feting Matthew, replete with bromides about love and marriage- silly yes, but true as well- and now, not one of them could even muster a response upon learning _it's happened to me too, this magical thing you've all been going on about._ But she knew there was an internal logic to anatomy, that these toxic feelings were her safeguard, _they will make me run_. "I'm moving to Ireland," she finished bluntly.

Robert had not spoken because he could not speak and he was gripping his glass so tightly he thought he would crush it. He finally managed to expel a portion of his fury. "In this house? You dare come here, into my home, to tell me you've been secretly consorting with my daughter-"

"It's not a secret," Sybil interjected plaintively. "We've just told you."

"And _you_- " He whipped his eyes to Sybil, saw her standing there with that same smug insolence, that petulant defiance, that artless disapproval of him- of _him_!- of authority, of rules, of order, of _everything; _a look reflected in the chauffeur- _where else had she learned it_?- he _knew_ it, he had known_ years_ ago, in her bedroom where she had stood with blood on her shirt spouting threats at him, including the final one that she so didn't care about her parents- who brought her into the world and subsequently tried to deliver to her everything in it- that she would leave and to hell with them.

That defined her whole attitude- _the chauffeur's_ attitude- to hell with them, to hell with him, to hell with it, to hell with _everything_. Except _him_, no doubt. She could care about his needs and desires; surely _defiance_ wasn't the attitude he wanted when he got her alone (how many times- _how many times_- he had been dispatched to drive her alone and those were only the times he knew about). Didn't she want to be_ liberal_ and _modern_? Wasn't she a rebel- a _revolutionary_- like him? If she really wanted to defect from this house, she should prove it, use the heat of an unseen encounter to _burn the place to the ground_.

_Damn it_ he had _known_ it- they had had no trouble from Sybil until he showed up. And they all told him he was wrong, he was being unfair, he didn't understand. But he had understood then as he understood now. He was a man, after all, and a father, and the chauffeur had taken his sweet girl and turned her into an ungrateful, selfish- "I wish I could say it was a surprise," he erupted, "to find you have become no more than a-"

"Papa!" Mary seemed surprised to realize she had shot up off the sofa and the room was now staring at her. It took her half a second to figure out something to say; she had only known that she must not let her father say_ that_. Not to Sybil. Sybil didn't deserve it and she couldn't bear to hear it, not when she'd lain laughing above this room as a stranger whispered, "_You like that, don't you_?"- and she had laughed, felt exhilarated, because she had. "Please. Let her speak."

_No, not this time_. "Sit down!" This time, Robert would not allow himself be battled back into submission or for Mary to shield Sybil behind her skirts. "I did not ask for your opinion."

Mary held her place_. He thinks he knows_, but he did not, not really. He didn't know how long she's weighed this, didn't know about the chastest hotel room in Britain, how she'd said "_our parents don't deserve it" _and how stupid Branson had slept in his _tie_, how much surer her little sister had become about their plan in the months that had passed since then; and as sad as it made her, how much surer she and Edith had become that Sybil had already passed on, irretrievably, from this life. "Sybil can explain how it happened. She deserves at least-"

The fact that Mary was still standing- did his word mean nothing around here?- infuriated Robert more than he already was, if that were possible. "I told you to sit down! This is not your affair!"

But the volume of his own voice was not enough to drown out Mary's next, telltale line. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but-"

"What do you mean _you knew_?"

* * *

><p>Tom had seen Sybil angry, but never this angry. She had ordered him out of the parlor, but as soon as they exited the room, it fell to him to negotiate the situation because she had quite clearly passed the point of control. He put his hand to her lower back and steered her out the front door to where they were now, in the lamp-lit driveway. He figured she couldn't break anything out here- a vase or her father's heart (and perhaps his nose as well)- and given the reception by her family, he doubted any of them would be looking for her now.<p>

"How quick they were to think the worst of us!" She was pacing around, furious. "Why would we live in sin? I'm not your mistress. We're not doing anything _wrong_."

"I'm not sure they believe that." She continued to rage and he continued to listen, offering modest appeasements and mild answers to direct questions. _Let it all out, sweetheart. _This confrontation, this rupture, had been building for five years; it was bound to bleed a bit.

"And how _dare_ he dispute my virtue- and in front of Matthew and Granny! And _Carson_?" It seemed to just occur to her that Carson had been in the room for that particular indignity. "He cares about propriety so damn much, but he has no problem questioning my virginity in front of the _butler_!" She scratched at her hair. "Never mind that he directed that accusation solely to _you_, as if I had no say in the matter at all!"

He nodded in solidarity. "I know."

"Thank you for pointing that out, by the way. You're a far more enlightened man than my father," she said bitterly. "What does he even mean by 'throw away my life'? _What_ life?"

"You have every right to be upset."

"As do you! The way they tried to humiliate you was deplorable." Her own offense started to subside for the first time since they'd stormed out. She took a deep, heaving breath, regarding him with guilt and regret. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I subjected you to that."

"It's fine-"

"No. It's not."

"It was a shock," he amended. "No one's at their best when they've had a shock."

"Mary never jumped to any of those conclusions when I told her. She wasn't pleased and she said her piece, but she never accused me of being _seduced_." It was that word she couldn't forgive. "Did he _seduce_ Mama? Does he think Matthew is _seducing_ Lavinia? Why would your intentions be any less honorable? Why would our feelings be any less true than theirs? Because you don't have a title?" She looked at him, baffled and sad. "Is that what they _think_?"

He only shrugged- it was more generous than any answer he could have given. "Let's take a walk," he proposed, extending his hand. "I have to get my things from the cottage." She took it and they started down the lawn, Robert watching from the window.

* * *

><p>Robert had marched out of the room right after them. He would not be further humiliated by his mother's comments or anyone's <em>pity<em>. It was bad enough having Carson see he couldn't even keep his own family in order. Carson must be appalled. Tomorrow, the whole staff would know- soon enough, the whole of England will know- that it had been open season on the Crawley daughters.

Carson had hurried to get Pratt to shuttle the guests home. Matthew and Lavinia had the decency to wait in the hall. "We'll say goodnight," Matthew said hastily, casting a concerned look at Mary, who was huddled in the corner with Edith. The Dowager Countess had stayed mercifully silent on the subject, staring elsewhere as Cora collected herself; when she went to wipe her eyes, Violet passed her a handkerchief.

Finally, Cora rose and walked over to her two remaining daughters. "If you see your sister," she said, voice warbled, "I would advise her to stay away from your father until he calms down, lest he say something unforgivable."

* * *

><p>Save for the wind rustling the leaves and the soft give of the ground beneath their feet, the walk was mostly quiet. From that, her clipped pace and stoic profile, he deduced she was done talking about it.<p>

"Are you all packed?"

"Yep. I can take the suitcases with me, but I'll have to send someone for my trunk."

A twig snapped loudly under her heel. She paused to check it, holding his shoulder for balance. "Where will you stay tonight?"

"At the Grantham Arms. I already booked the room."

She nodded, looked up at the moon. A moment passed. "And you'll leave tomorrow?"

"We'll see." He squeezed her hand. After the aspersions cast on him and his intentions towards her, there was no way he was going to skip town and leave her behind, not even for a week. But it didn't seem the right time to talk logistics.

They resumed their walk to the cottage.


	38. Chapter 38: April 1919 Part III

_Thank you so much for the reviews! _

_Two more chapters at Downton. _

* * *

><p><strong>April 1919<strong>

The cottage looked like it had been robbed, swept bare and devoid of _things_, but for the key on the table and jacket he had discarded on the chair.

Sybil was standing in the front room, peering through the door frame into the now-vacant bedroom. No newspapers or books, no dirty tumblers, no tokens of Ireland. Some very momentous nights in her life had been spent here, on that mattress which was now stripped- the night he proposed, the morning they would have married. Tonight, there was no trace they had ever been here. It was as if that place had vanished in time or maybe it had never existed it all. It made her wonder what her own room would look like, after it had been packed up and abandoned, its owner long gone, just a memory or faded apparition to the people who inhabited the house.

She was not sure how that made her feel.

He moved past her into the bedroom to retrieve his suitcases from the closet and she followed, taking a seat on the bed. "It's strange to see it so empty," she remarked.

He glanced over, but her face was unreadable as she sat, shoulders slightly slouched, picking at a loose thread on her fancy dress. He was still high off the pride he felt when she had snapped her head and walked out of that house, turned her back to its interminable disapproval and suffocating intolerance. She was an arsonist- _his_ arsonist- and the castle behind her was in flames. But right now, she looked more like a child who had had too much birthday party, tired and overfull, and he knew that just because she didn't let them see didn't mean it doesn't hurt.

He went and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead. _If you knew how much I loved you, you could never be sad. _ But not even he believed that was true, so he cupped her face and said instead, "When I unpack, it will be in our home."

She smiled at him- a real smile, not a token for his effort- and he resumed his task. She watched him, squatting down in his shirtsleeves, folding and sorting methodically and efficiently. _He will be good at this_, she found herself thinking, then wondered, _at what_ exactly? _Being man of the house, _she supposed,_ but that's silly, a ridiculous convention... _especially tonight, in the wake of Papa's impotent posturing. He had been man of the house until his daughter decided she had no need of Downton or him and shouted to the room that the emperor had no clothes. _He will never forgive me for that__.__  
><em>

But back to the man before her.

She was always transfixed by his hands, how deftly he could wield a wrench or a pen; how he intuited, cared for, plied, finessed the problem, the phrase; how intently he focused, how careful and attentive he was. She used to catch him on occasion, sorting through bolt fasteners, sizing and threading them, wondering if they really resembled wedding rings or if that's just where her mind went as she watched the man who had bared his heart to her, who wanted to marry her, whom she had turned down, if not really. The daily humiliation she had put him through these years- all his feelings exposed, while she kept all hers secret- but she never thought of it as so one-sided because she knew. _ She_ knew the jealousy she felt when he worked on the engine- and curse whoever decided that all cars should be both _she _and beautiful_- _ wishing that her temperamental or unexplained behavior could likewise command his undivided attention for hours, until he ran his hand over the exterior and said, "_She'll be just fine_."

She didn't have to wish anymore. He looked over again, from the floor in front of the closet; she smiled and shrugged, keeping her thoughts to herself. _For now_.

Something was happening to her- what she had not felt the last time they had packed, for Scotland. It was a shift in the winds, spiriting her farther and farther from the drama of the parlor and the sting of her family's reaction.

_He is my family now_.

He carried his suitcases- the last of his things- out of the room, to put by the door; the cottage was now really, truly empty.

_And I think- finally- I am ready to go home_.

* * *

><p>Cora opened the door to her husband's dressing room and found him, snifter in hand, staring angry and vigilant out the window. She knew he was not doing this for effect; her husband, whatever his faults, was a kind man who adored his girls. "You've been stewing long enough," she said. "Come to bed."<p>

He took a slow sip of his drink. "Where is she?"

"I don't know, Robert," she sighed. "Probably asleep." She decided her best approach was solidarity. "I'm sure she doesn't want to see anyone and quite frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready to see her just yet."

"She's with him." He turned to face her. "I am not conjecturing. She left with him. _I saw them leave_. That was an hour ago."

This news caught Cora off guard. She was not pleased Sybil was flouting propriety, but then _what rules of decorum does he think apply here_? And their daughter had her own wounds to nurse and it made sense she would want her only ally with her. "What do you want me to say?"

Robert looked out into the blackness, across the sloping lawn down which they had disappeared. "I don't even know her anymore," he admitted. "Worse yet, I'm not sure I _want _to know her."

_If you think I will disown her, you are quite mistaken. _"I know you're angry and so am I," Cora responded evenly. "I know you're scared. So am I. But you cannot speak about our daughter like that. I won't stand for it."

* * *

><p>Mary and Edith were the last ones left in the parlor. They were not talking. Mary was submerged in her own thoughts and Edith thought she might be sick. It's not as if Sybil hadn't warned them. "<em>It is drastic<em>." It's not as if it could have continued on the way it was. _"That's what I want- no going back_." It's not as if Sybil ever yielded when it came to having her way.

That made her laugh and cry at once, and a tear escaped down her cheek. Mary looked over and their eyes met; it occurred to Edith that as of next week, they would be just two again. "I can't imagine her gone," she said softly.

"You won't have to imagine it," Mary replied with none of the harshness Edith had come to expect. "We'll find out what it's like soon enough."

"What do we do now?"

"Who knows?" Mary shrugged. "Console Mama? I'm sure she'll want to know all the gory details she won't dare ask Sybil." She rose and Edith followed. " And I suppose I shall have to get my scolding from Papa."

"Tell him I knew too." That was a surprise; Edith wasn't the sort to throw herself on the grenade. Mary looked to her sister, who was squinting at something out the window at the end of the hall. "Is that Matthew?"

Mary's heart skipped. "I thought he and Lavinia left."

"Apparently not." Edith nodded to the door. "Go on. I'll check on Mama."

* * *

><p>Robert had followed Cora into their bedroom, to her great regret. "I recall being <em>in<em> _this very room_ saying we needed to keep control of Sybil! _You_ insisted it was not a problem. _You_ insisted..."

His rant went on, but she didn't hear it. Their daughter was leaving, making a terrible and dangerous decision, and all she wanted was to cry in the arms of the only other person who was feeling that loss and fear as acutely as her.

"_Mary_ has done well enough on her own," he huffed. "And now _Sybil_-"

Cora had had quite enough. "It goes both ways, Robert!" she cut in angrily. "If we had sent Sybil to school like she'd asked, maybe she would have been spending her time in the library of a women's college instead of getting tutored by the chauffeur!"

Robert was taken aback. "Of course, it would be my fault."

Her eyes went heavenward. "_Robert_-" But her weary response was interrupted by the slamming of the dressing room door.

* * *

><p>"Finished?" Sybil asked, when he reappeared in the bedroom doorway.<p>

"Finished."

She held out her arms to him and he obliged, taking a seat on the bare mattress beside her. He could feel the tension of the evening start to ease in his embrace, as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes- right here, like this- and wake up in the morning. _Alas_. "I can't wait to be home with you."

_Truer words_. "I was thinking earlier that in two weeks, I'll be coming home to you after my first day at the paper."

"A very big day." She sat up, smiled bright. "We'll have to celebrate. I'll make dinner," she offered. "Your favorite. Any meal you like."

"Or we could go out," he suggested.

"You don't think I can!"

"Of course I do."

She narrowed her eyes. "Of course I _can_, or of course you don't _think_ I can?"

"Yes," was his jocular response.

"I'll have you know, I made my own tea every day at nursing school."

"Great," he quipped, stealing a quick kiss. "We can eat tea." She gave him a playful swat. _We're so easy together_, he thought. _And she's so happy like this._ _It's they who make it hard_. He really couldn't wait to be gone from here. "You seem in better spirits," he observed.

"I am."

He studied her face. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she nodded slowly. "I think so."

"Was it what you expected?"

"I don't know. I suppose it wasn't as bad as it could have been," she demured. He thought she was shutting down the conversation, but to his surprise, she continued. "I don't know that_ I_ expected to react as I did. I just get so _angry_ sometimes." She started taking off her gloves, which had begun to irritate her. "Though I don't think I am, really- an angry person."

"I don't think you are," he frowned. "In fact, I know you're not."

"No one ever gets angry in our house. No one _shows_ it, rather," she corrected herself. "Well, Papa does sometimes. But not us. _We're_ not supposed to. Feminine frailty and all." She rolled her eyes and he chortled. "But sometimes I can't help it. Maybe I really am my father's daughter," she rued, with a shake of her head. "Oh, he would love to hear that."

"Well, he _should_."

She thanked him with a smile. "But I don't have to pretend anymore," she told him. "And that is such a relief. No more hiding. No more trying to fit where I don't."

He took her hand in his. "You're free now."

"Yes. I am," she said, giving him a look that communicated so much more than those words. _At last_. "At last." She leaned in, her mouth so close to his that he felt her breath on his lips as she asked, "Do you have to go to the hotel now?"

"No, not right now." _Good_.

They sealed the negotiation with a kiss- light at first, but quickly deepening. She thought there was no better salve than stroking his tongue with hers, ceding the weight of her body into his hands and feeling all her burdens go with it. _So what_ if people in parlors would say it was scandalous to kiss like this, falling back on the pillow shoved against the headboard and urging him down on her, her body arching upward, aching to be touched. _Bully_ if people called it immoral, they were wrong; she was merely submitting to the internal forces governing her, it was as natural as falling asleep, which no would say proved a lack of self-control. _Who cares_ if they found out; her family believed it already and a reputation can only be ruined once.

_Forget all that_, she thought. _I've never felt better than this_.

She shivered as his mouth moved over her, thought she might die with anticipation as he reached to reveal her shoulder and the vain swell beneath it until the stiff fabric of _this stupid dress_ stopped him and brought the exquisite sequence to an abrupt halt.

"You were wearing this dress when you accepted me," he noticed, fingering the strap.

"I was."

He rolled off her, onto his back. "It's very lovely," he sighed.

"You think so?" She rolled to her side, propping up on her elbow. "I hate it."

"Oh?" His eyes were closed. "Why's that?"

"Because I don't want to be wearing it. And it would be impossible to put back on." He opened his eyes. "It has about ten thousand inlaid hooks and you have to be either an engineer or Anna to figure it out. And don't start me on the corset."

He turned his face to her and she slid over, pressing her body along the length of his and pulled his mouth down to hers again. She thought she would not be able to feel his hands through the layers of fabric and bustle and herringbone- "_It's like wearing plaster of Paris!_" she had once bemoaned- but, that turned out to not be quite true. She could _definitely_ feel it, felt it even where he couldn't reach.

"Mary told me, after I told her, that love was dangerous because it makes you forget caution," she said, voice ragged, when they broke for breath. _Kiss me again_. "I know what she means." _Now, please, n__ow._

"You shouldn't need caution if you have trust," he countered, obliging her unspoken entreaty. "And you should be able to trust the people who love you not to hurt you."

"I do." Her gaze fell softly, watching as his hand absently caressed her hip - _oh, how things have changed_. "You know, if we had- that night, or any night really- I wouldn't have thought it was wrong," she told him seriously. "Seducing is taking advantage, something to be ashamed of. I wouldn't be ashamed." She touched his face, bringing her lips to his again. "How could this ever be wrong?"

* * *

><p>The lamplight made Matthew look even more golden, warm and radiant than usual. <em>Alas<em>. "I was sure you'd left," Mary said, stepping outside with a smile.

"I sent Lavinia home. I told her Cousin Robert might want some male company," he explained, smiling back. "But, he's with your mother. I don't want to intrude."

"Yet here you are," she observed. "Still."

"So I am," he acknowledged. "And since I am, perhaps I could be of use to you?"

She raised one eyebrow. "Do you drive? Because we're in the market for a chauffeur."

He probably laughed too hard at that- Mary had the most incisive humor of anyone he had ever known, _she would have been great in the trenches_- but she joined in, grateful for the release. But soon enough, the same furrow he had noticed in the parlor reappeared on her face. "You're worried about her."

"She's getting what she wants," Mary said quietly. "I tried to talk her out of it. I did my best, but it wasn't enough." She could see Matthew was as confounded as everyone else as to how it had all happened. "It's not a recent development," she informed him. "She told me about a year ago."

"A _year_?"

"I'll do you one better," Mary posed gamely. "She tried to elope with him."

"_What_? When?"

"Last November. They would have done if Edith, Anna, and I hadn't chased them down."

"Goodness." He looked at Mary- how many times had he seen her, had they talked, since November and she had never let on. "You never said. All this time, you kept it secret."

"She's my sister," Mary responded simply. "I thought it the right thing at the time, but now I'm not so sure. I only wanted to protect her, but I can't very well protect her when she's all alone in Dublin, starving in the streets."

This time, he resisted the urge to laugh at her hyperbole. "I doubt the situation will be quite that dire. Sybil is very resourceful. Besides, she'll have Branson."

Mary threw him a look. "You have now ceased to make me feel better. Thank you." But she couldn't help smiling at him- she never could.

"Sybil and Branson," he marveled. The idea of them as a couple- a _married couple_- was incomprehensible. _Although..._ "I remember seeing them at the count in Ripon," he started to say, not realizing, "standing together and talking and thinking it was... odd. I thought to mention it to your father but-"

He suddenly recalled why he had not. He looked at Mary, who was quite clearly remembering it too.

_"Mary, you look after Matthew..."_

She had never considered that their stories intersected. _ If she does marry him- God forbid- they will tell their children about that night, how it all began. But our story will be lost, like so many tragic plays. _After all, they would be married soon- to other people and other stories. _ It turns out our tale is not that of Andromeda, but Aeschylus._

It was awkward now, both of them thinking the thing they should not, until Matthew announced, in a stilted voice, that he should get home and Mary replied she would have Carson send the car around.

"Don't worry about Sybil," he said as he left. "You couldn't have stopped her. And your heart was in the right place."

_My heart._ "Thank you, Matthew."

* * *

><p>There was a knock at the door; it was Mary. Cora knew it had not been easy for her, that this whole incident with Sybil was another excuse for that ghost to chase her again, but still, she was surprised to see Mary looking so drawn. "Where's Papa?"<p>

"In his dressing room," Cora answered sadly, "wondering where he went wrong." _  
><em>

"But he hasn't," she retorted, fighting back tears. "It's not his fault." _It's mine._ _I could have been different, I could have married Matthew, I could have_-

Cora took her hand. _My poor girl_. _Someday, you will have to forgive yourself_. "Have you seen your sister?"

Mary shook her head. "She hasn't been with him," she confided after a moment. "He should know that, at least."

Her mother, though grateful for the information, only sighed. "What does it matter, when she's leaving?"

"It matters," her firstborn replied adamantly. "A lot." Cora squeezed her hand as Mary raised apologetic eyes. "I couldn't tell. I_ couldn't_."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. I forgive you." She could at least unburden her daughter of this.

* * *

><p>Sybil would never forget it, the last night in the cottage, when they laid their heads on the same pillow, drunk on their freedom, reveling in each other and the warm spring air enveloping them. No more secrets, no more lies; she could telephone him at the Grantham Arms and he could come meet her at the gates. And soon- <em>so soon<em>- they would be on their own.

In the darkness, she whispered the question she had been wondering long before it was warranted. "What do you want?"

It was at least two heartbeats before he responded. "You mean, like this?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Are you worried about that?"

"No, not really. I'd just like to know."

"What do I want?" he echoed. "I suppose I want lots of things." His voice was strange and he took his time answering and she prepared herself for... well, she wasn't quite sure. But then he spoke and said the most astonishing things, made even more astonishing by the matter-of-fact way in which they were delivered. "I want you to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most desired. I want you to feel confident and safe and wonderful," he continued, "because it _is _wonderful- not shameful or something you need to be protected from. I want you to love freely and fully without fear or doubt. But most of all, I want you to know how much _you _are loved and there is no part of you that I wouldn't embrace, wouldn't love, simply because it _is _you."

What touched her most was that he really, truly meant it. _He_ may have thought that was commonplace, but she knew better.

She rolled over in her bed, regarded the clock above the fireplace. He must be checked into the hotel now. _It's probably not very nice. Or comfortable_, she thought. A slow smile spread across her face.

She had a suspicion the next hotel would be very different.


	39. Chapter 39: April 1919 Part IV

_Thank you so much for the reviews! I really appreciate reading the different views/thoughts on the show- it's definitely the most gratifying thing for me because it enhances my viewing and imagination about it. So thanks again! We cover a lot of ground in this chapter, but that's mostly because a lot happens in 2x08._

_Next chapter is the last full chapter at Downton- then it's on to Liverpool._

* * *

><p><strong>April 1919<strong>

For the first time in months, Sybil had no trouble waking up. She threw back the covers, dressed quickly without assistance, and bounded down the stairs. "Good morning, Carson!" she called cheerfully, ignoring the butler's stupefied expression. Reaching the landing, she heard the clink of dishware coming from the breakfast room and surmised that Papa must be down already. _Ugh. No__. _Her response was visceral; she was still smarting from last night. _Not now anyway_. It seemed silly to mar such a beautiful morning with an argument.

Carson's face was twisted and it was obvious he was uncomfortable, unsure of how to approach her in light of recent events. For a second, it made her sad- this man had known her all her life, had lived here even longer than she had, but she was made strange to him because of who she loved. _I'll spare us both_. "I'm going into town," she said, trying to sound as normal as possible. "I'll be back this afternoon."

His eyes widened in protest. "But His Lordship-"

Sybil did not wait to hear it. She walked out the door into the bright spring sunshine, her pace not slowing until she arrived at the Grantham Arms.

She spotted Tom at a table by the window in the hotel dining room. He folded his newspaper and rose to kiss her cheek. After they had greeted each other and settled in he asked, "Did you see your parents?"

"No. Papa was down, but-" she stopped herself with a wave of her hand. "No. I didn't." She flashed a tight smile. "Next topic, please."

Fortuitously, the waiter choose that moment to interrupt, bringing tea and taking orders for eggs and toast. They discussed their respective itineraries for the morning: Sybil planned to call on Isobel, Tom wanted to visit the bookshop and write for a few hours, and they agreed to walk back to the house together so he could get his trunk and settle up with Mr. Carson.

But throughout their conversation, Tom kept being distracted by the hotel owner, who was hovering agitatedly in the doorway, his eyes fixed squarely and unrepentantly on them. Tom became more and more irritated by this until finally, he could stand it no longer and interrupted Sybil. "I'm sorry love, but I think we're being watched."

She took a sip of tea. "I'm sure we are." She did not need to look to confirm it; she had seen on the owner's face when she came in that he knew exactly who she was.

Tom frowned. "There's no cause for that and I don't much appreciate it."

"Don't pay it any mind." He found the instruction hard to take. "Please, Tom- just ignore it," she reiterated. But still he could not, not until she reached her hand across the table, which seemed to do the trick.

Nothing could darken Sybil's mood. She was reveling in the newfound freedom of being soon-to-depart the home of her parents. The war had created an exception, but peace had brought a return to the rule, which is that _women have no say in their own lives until they are married_, as she had complained (many times) to Tom. Now, finally, she could do as _she_ wanted. "_Our house, our rules_," he had put it. _As we've always done_, she thought with a sly smile.

When their plates came, she merrily noted that this was their first meal together. "How funny, this way that we've done things!" Lowering her voice, she added, "Sharing a hotel room before we've ever shared a meal."

Tom tipped his teacup to her. "To the first of many."

"Meals or hotel rooms?" she wondered aloud, eyes sparkling.

"Both," he winked.

The rest of breakfast was lovely.

* * *

><p>Tom noticed it again as they walked through town to Crawley House: <em>looks- gestures- whispers- suspicion<em>. "I never realized how much the townspeople gawk at you." His own eyes moved uneasily around the street and its occupants, all of whom seemed fixated on them.

Sybil, however, appeared completely unfazed; she countered his observation with a sidelong look. "They're staring at _you_," she informed him, "wondering 'Who is this strange man making a show of himself about town with one of Lord Grantham's daughters?'"

"What business is it of theirs?" he asked, resisting the urge to make a face at a merchant loitering outside, running her mouth to a grizzled customer. "Do they always stare like this?"

Sybil shrugged. "We are the most famous family in town."

"I've noticed it on occasion, but I always thought they were staring at the motor. I thought it was just the money, frankly."

"No," she responded flatly. "It's not."

"So I see." _This is what she meant, _he realized, _when she worried about 'what would be said.' _And these were the cheap seats. These people didn't matter. He tried to imagine her, as she was now- chin high, attitude cool- striding through Buckingham Palace, condemned by every face and comment._ __I've been naive, ___he realized___. ___"It's a bit unnerving, isn't it?"

"If you're not used to it, I suppose." They walked a bit farther before she offered, "Once Edith and I went to the fair- I was about eleven- and we heard two women behind us opine very loudly, 'The eldest girl got all the beauty in that family!'"

"_What_? Were they blind?"

"Obviously," she answered, amused to learn that Tom's protectiveness of her had no statute of limitations. "Edith went through a spell as a child when she refused to go into town, even to church. She hated the attention."

She briefly wondered if she should finish the anecdote or if doing so would be a betrayal of familial confidence. _He is part of the family now- my family at any rate,_ she decided and so continued, "My parents were beside themselves- they thought she was developing a phobia. Papa was even considering a psychologist in London. But then Edith confessed she had overheard some people speculating that the reason she looked different from Mary and me was that our mother had been unfaithful. She didn't want to give anyone cause to say more hateful things about our family."

"Jesus." Tom was starting to learn what it was like from _inside_ the big, grand house. He was intimately aware of Sybil's burdens and struggles, but perhaps the rest of blithely untroubled Crawleys were neither as blithe nor as untroubled as he presumed. "That's awful," he lamented and meant it.

They rounded the corner, Crawley House coming into view. "Of course, it's not true- anyone who knows our family knows my grandmother had red hair, as does my aunt. And of course, my parents assured Edith of this and she believed them. But she couldn't _un_hear it." Sybil relayed this with nonchalance and a hint of distraction; Tom could see she she was already mentally moved on to the upcoming conversation with Isobel. "Who knows if she still harbored doubt, or if it's affected how she sees herself. Something doesn't have to be true to be real."

_That_ was the point that she had been trying to impress upon him all along. And it was only now, when everything was very nearly settled, that he truly understood it. He wanted to tell her that, but they had reached the gate and Sybil was clearly eager to get inside. So he simply wished her good luck, with a nod at the house.

"Oh, I won't need it," she smiled. "Isobel will understand." That she was sure of. "Now, my _father..._" They both started to chuckle. "I'll be lucky to leave with my life!"

It was a completely innocent joke that would not be funny at all by nightfall.

* * *

><p>Sybil was inspecting a photo of Dr. and Mrs. Reginald Crawley on the mantle when she heard the familiar, friendly voice behind her. "I hear I picked the wrong night to miss dinner." She turned to see Isobel regarding her with a smile. "Hello dear." The older woman embraced her. "From what Matthew tells me, congratulations are in order."<p>

Isobel's tone was somewhat guarded, a detail that did not escape Sybil's notice. "I'm sorry. I do wish you could have heard it from me, but-"

"Nonsense." Isobel waved off her apology. "You're here now. So," she began, taking a seat on the sofa and gesturing for Sybil to do the same, "tell me everything."

Sybil cleared her throat; she wasn't sure why she felt nervous, but she did. It would be the first time she had ever told the story sequentially; even Mary had heard it piecemeal, full of half-truths and self-delusions. "I don't know where to begin!"

"You could start with his name," Isobel prompted.

Sybil laughed. "It's Tom."

"The future Mrs. Tom Branson," Isobel mused.

"Yes. I suppose I am." She had not thought of that, her new name. She had so much else to consider, it seemed preposterous to think about such a minute and inconsequential detail, though she supposed that was unusual. _Life turns out to be so different than you expect, _she thought as her mind wandered back to watching Edith- ever the romantic- on the floor of Mary's bedroom, joining her name with some boy's surname in ostentatious script.

_"Edith Wessex? Edith Mortimer? What _are_ you doing?"_

_Mary, who was braiding Sybil's hair on her bed, looked over at Edith with a smirk. "She's dreaming, that's what!"_

_Edith scowled at her older sister. "All girls do this," she informed her younger sister haughtily._

_Sybil tilted her head back at Mary. "You don't do that."_

_Mary heaved a tired sigh. "That's because my name will _always_ be Crawley."_

_"Mine too," Sybil decided. "What's wrong with Crawley? I like it just fine."_

_"You'll have to change it when you marry, dummy," Edith said._

_"Then give her the pen," Mary sneered. "You certainly have nothing about worry about." _

More than a decade later, Sybil could still feel how Mary's whole body tensed at the insult; even the most benign offense directed at her would be met with a body blow from her eldest sister. While Sybil knew it was motivated by love, she also suspected (though Mary would cut out her own tongue before she'd ever admit it) that some of her vigilant defense was vicarious; Mary had no one to fight for her, which is why she always fought for Sybil.

"_My name will always be Crawley_." Mary had been referring to the arranged marriage with Patrick then, though Sybil was too young to know that all the chattering about boys and balls and love and marriage were moot for Mary. Mary did not get to choose. _But her name won't always be Crawley_, Sybil realized, eyes casting over a photo of Matthew, proud and true, in his uniform. _And she did not choose that either._

The opening of the door brought her back to the present as Isobel remarked, "Well, that's not such a surprise."

"It's not?"

"Oh, no. It was obvious you two had a rapport- when he came to get you at the hospital or when he brought your lunch. I am very fond of Moseley, but not like that!"

Moseley, who had just come in with the tea service, startled at the mention of his name. He hastily set down the tray and scurried out, leaving two very amused women in his wake. They set to fixing their tea. "Do you love him?" Isobel asked, suddenly and plaintively.

Sybil was too appreciative of the question to respond with a simple yes. "I couldn't marry him if I didn't." Then with a flare of indignation, she added, "For the record, you're the first person to ask me that- thank you."

"I take it your parents did not receive the news very well."

"They didn't receive it at all! They think it's rash, a rebellion- 'juvenile madness' as Papa called it. If they only knew," she rued. "If they would only _listen_."

"Well, I'm here and I'm listening," Isobel reminded her with a small smile. And so, Sybil told her everything, about the pamphlets and garden party, the the proposal in York-

"York?" Isobel exclaimed, nearly choking on her tea. "But that was three years ago!"

"I know," was all Sybil could mumble contritely, aware she was not exactly a hero in this story.

"Go on," Isobel coughed.

- the years of conversations in the garage, the failed elopement, Mary and Edith in the motor, Papa's accusations and the plan for Dublin, which she was soon to see.

"I couldn't tell you at the time, but this is why I couldn't pursue the hospital job in London."

"But you plan to work in Ireland?"

"Yes, of course."

"Tom is alright with you working after you're married?" Isobel pressed. "You've discussed it with him?"

"Yes to all of it," Sybil assured her.

They talked at length about her job prospects. Sybil had lots of questions: what qualities to look for in a hospital, does it matter if a hospital is Catholic, what should she say in an interview, what did Isobel think of working at a smaller clinic, which may have more relaxed hiring standards and therefore be more amenable to an Englishwoman?

On that last point, Isobel had- much as she hated- to tell Sybil, "Your nationality may not be the only strike against you. Many places won't hire a married woman."

Sybil looked shocked, then crestfallen, then- in the same minute- consumed with determination. _This is what I want. And I am going to have the life I want. _"Then I will find the one that does and I will _make_ them hire me. I'll prove my worth to them."

"I have no doubt." Isobel couldn't hide her smile. What she wouldn't give to see even a fraction of that resolve, that mettle, in Matthew's choice of a wife!

"I can't worry about some people's small-mindedness," Sybil sniffed. "Now, what do you think about working at a state sanitorium?"

They continued to talk until Isobel caught sight of a familiar young man, with sandy hair and a light suit, coming down the street. "I think I see your beau."

"Goodness, has it been two hours already?" Her tone was regretful, but Isobel saw how her face lit up as she discreetly craned to catch a glimpse of him out the window. _Oh, to be young and in love_. Again, what she wouldn't give...

"It went fast for me too. I'm very glad we had a chance to talk, just us two." Though Isobel had hoped there would be an opportunity to bring up the somewhat sensitive issue of birth control... She was not sure how much Sybil had picked up from her work at the hospital, but she certainly wouldn't get any information from anyone else in the family. _Perhaps I can find a moment later_. "I do hope I'll see you at dinner tonight?"

"Of course," Sybil replied, as if she could not fathom any reason why she wouldn't. _ I do like your pluck, my dear._

Sybil stood up to leave and Isobel to see her out. "If there's anything else I can do, please ask."

Sybil paused and looked around, scanning the photographs that adorned the room. "Well, it's just that-" she started shyly and a little tongue-tied, "I wonder if you had any advice- about marriage, I mean- I would be glad to hear it."

Her question tugged Isobel's heart. Marriage was a daunting prospect- to say nothing of the all the additional challenges that her choices would add- and she doubted very much that Cora would advise Sybil about a union she was dead-set against. _I've never had a daughter and right now, she in need of a mother. _Isobel was more than happy to oblige.

"I would say this," she began. "You are about take a husband and make a home of your own and that will all be very exciting- for a time. But don't limit yourself to being just Mrs. Tom Branson. You're a bright and substantial young woman, Sybil, and you must keep developing yourself- your talents, your interests, your opinions. You'll face prejudice of course, from people who believe anything a woman does outside the home is at the expense of her family. I think it's quite the opposite- your husband and children will benefit the most and it would be to their detriment to deny them _all_ you can be."

"Oh, Isobel." A thank you seemed quite insufficient; how could she convey what it meant that a woman she admired so much had such faith in her? "It certainly seems to be true of Matthew."

"I hope so!" Isobel laughed.

Sybil's final question was trusting, if tentative, but she had to ask. She didn't know why, in this moment, she needed Isobel's confirmation, but she did. "So, you think I've made the right choice?"

"I think you are too bright not to have chosen well," Isobel responded judiciously. "No one knows how life will work out- it's impossible. You love him- trust in that love, trust in him. Talk often and honestly. And when things are rough- and they will get rough at times- remember how you felt today when you looked out my window and saw him walking up the street"- at that, Sybil broke into a beautiful, blushing smile- "and if you do that, you will be just fine."

And then, the lost and frustrated girl she had once rescued from her aimless and frustrating life, nearly leapt into her arms and didn't let go until Isobel reminded her that Tom was outside, and she should be mindful that engaged men are uniquely vulnerable to lateness and the fear their beloved may not return. So Sybil went off, down the path to where he was waiting for her.

Isobel watched them from the window, as far as she could, as they walked. They were already deep in conversation; Sybil's brunette curls bobbed as she spoke and gesticulated, while Branson- _Tom_- nodded and interjected. It was how a young couple _should_ look- like partners and confidantes, teammates in the great game of life- bursting with enthusaism and hope for the adventure they were embarking on.

_She'll be alright, _she thought with satisfaction and no small pride for the part she had played in it. _Now if only Matthew... _

She sighed and turned from the window, as they disappeared from view.

* * *

><p>There was no mistaking the voice- high-pitched and dripping with condescension. The terrible twosome had escaped the servants' hall as quickly as possible to hold an emergency session about the bombshell that Tom Branson had just dropped.<p>

"'_Lady Sybil and I are getting married_.'" O'Brien mocked. "The nerve!"

"If he imagines he'll waltz back in here as His Lordship and we'll wait on him, he's got another thing coming."

"And how he said it! As if, they just _came to agreement_ that they would marry. She decided to marry you, you silly Mick-"

"- God knows why."

"- but _you_ didn't decide nothing!"

"That's the truth."

"And my God, Her Ladyship! The thanks she gets from those stupid girls!" O'Brien puffed furiously as she ranted. "People say, 'Don't you wish you had had children?' _NO_. No, I do not. Her Ladyship's given near her whole_ life_ to nurturing those three and the best that sorry lot can deliver is a social-climbing smear-monger fiance with a fortune in yellow newspapers. The next one's got no looks and no charms and probably won't ever leave them in peace, and last of them's got no brains and probably a little bastard by the chauffeur." Thomas looked over, eyebrows raised. "She seems awfully quick to get out of here, if you ask me," O'Brien said with an emphatic nod.

It was at that moment that Tom Branson made his presence known. "Well, I hate to disappoint you," he interrupted. "But don't fret, O'Brien- you'll be the first to hear if there's a blessed event."

"Oh, I'll know," she retorted unabashedly. "I'll be at Her Ladyship's grave after she drops dead from the horror!" She stubbed out her cigarette and stomped off.

Thomas took a long drag- the former footman sizing up the former chauffeur. "Well, aren't you the cat who ate the canary. What would Mr. Trotsky think about this?" he taunted. "Trading all your radical hogwash for a shot at cigars and brandy with His Lordship. Well, I hate to disappoint you, _my lord_, but you won't get within a mile of that."

"Ah, come now, Thomas," Tom replied, nonplussed. "I know you don't believe in class shame."

"It's not about class- it's _you_." He stamped out his butt. "She could've done better than you."

"Like you, you mean?" Tom was both surprised and highly amused at this line of attack.

"Like_ anyone_." They heard a jangle of keys- Mrs. Hughes had entered the courtyard.

"Yeah, well..." Tom could never suffer Thomas' triumphalism; he put his hands in his pockets and leaned in, a half-second ahead of Mrs. Hughes' earshot. "I think she prefers men who prefer women."

Thomas spun on his heel with a _this isn't over_ look, to which Tom could only chuckle, because it _was_ over- he was off to collect his trunk and put an official end to his career as a servant of Downton. He sobered as Mrs. Hughes came upon him.

"So you're going back to Ireland. And with a newspaper job." He nodded respectfully. "Good for you, lad. The _work_, I mean," she clarified, with a pointed and deliberate disapproval.

Mrs. Hughes was considered to be something of a mother figure among the staff and perhaps because of it, he responded with a bit of boyish goading- as he would have done were it his own mother standing before him. "And the rest of it?" She looked into the distance with a shake of her head and sighed. "It can't have come as a complete shock to you. You of all people."

"You did the wrong thing, lad." Her verdict, like her face, was severe. "You took advantage and that was wrong."

"No, I didn't."_ Of course, she believes the worst too_. "I _wouldn't_, I would never-" he started to rebut. But he could see her face was more sad than offended and he knew she did not mean _that_. "I love her."

"I know you do. But you would have never been able to speak a word to her- let alone _marry_ her!- if you hadn't been employed in this house. You took advantage of your position here, of His Lordship's trust, of Mr. Carson's trust. I know you don't want to hear it, but that's the truth."

"We love each other," he said after a long minute. "Does that mean nothing?"

"It's not nothing. But it's not everything either." She sighed. "Good luck to you though- you'll need it."


	40. Chapter 40: April 1919 Part V

_Thank you so much as always for the reviews and to Irish Chauffeur for the mile correction._

_Aren't the S3 spoilers exciting? I assume the S3 promo photo isn't a spoiler so I'll ask- do we think S cut her hair? Or is it just the style? This may or may not involve an upcoming chapter..._

_And speaking of, I've read all the comments re: the sex question and it's definitely influenced the upcoming chapters so thank you all for that as well._

_Last chapter at Downton. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p>"You don't want to ring Richard?"<p>

The Crawley sisters were holding a solemn confab in Mary's bedroom while Dr. Clarkson examined Mama. She had started vomiting blood- an alarming sign, to say nothing of the sight. Lavinia had fallen ill too and so had Carson. From the morning optimism the house had plunged into midnight angst. The sisters themselves were all scared, all tired, all snapping at each other more than usual, and now Sybil was stressing about Mary's disinterest at the prospect of informing her fiance.

"For what?" Mary responded. "What can he do to help Mama?"

"Not for her- for _you._"

Mary seemed to be visibly biting her tongue. "No."

"Fine, but I don't understand it," Sybil said, rising and heading for the door. "I'm going to telephone Tom."

Edith, as usual, had no one to call. She was wondering if that might ever change when Mary told her to go stand guard by the extension. "The last thing we need is Papa picking up_ that_ conversation," Mary sighed wearily.

Sybil had gone downstairs to the library (no one would be down there tonight), leaving Edith to play sentry by the telephone upstairs. Several minutes had passed and she wondered if the whole exercise wasn't futile, if Sybil hadn't already hung up. So, as noiseless and alert as a thief, Edith picked up the receiver. The brogue on the other end, though huskier after being awoken mid-sleep, was unmistakable.

Edith had apparently caught them mid-conversation; Sybil must have already told him of the influenza outbreak and Mama's condition because they had moved on to other news.

"Did your father give you a hard time today?" the deep male voice on the other end wanted to know.

"Not so much. He gave me a bit of business earlier. And then Granny came in for reinforcement."

"What did he say?"

"The same." Her sister sighed irascibly. "He forbid me to go, I told him I was going next week. And he again threatened not to give me any money, and I told him- _again-_ that I do not want any."

"Well, we don't need it."

"No, we don't," she concurred. There was a short silence- oddly comfortable, Edith thought- before Sybil continued. "It started badly. He came to my room saying he was sure _we_ were both sorry about last night. And I said, 'Not me. I have nothing to apologize for.'" Edith cringed- _why must Sybil challenge Papa so, does she really want him to disown her_? But there was a rumble of low, prideful laughter from the other end. _He_ loved it. "It didn't get better from there."

"I'll bet."

"He was surprised I came down to dinner and so I had to tell the whole table I have nothing to be ashamed of either." A pause, this one felt the conversation turn. "But it all seems quite petty and irrelevant now..." _  
><em>

She trailed off and the line went silent for so long that Edith started glancing nervously over her shoulder, certain Sybil had set the receiver down and was about to out her for eavesdropping. But then Branson spoke again.

"We can stay here as long as you need."

"But your job-"

"We'll work it out." His voice was soothing. "You should be with your mother."

More silence, then: "Where are you right now?"

"At the front desk. The hotel has a telephone for guests, but it's out of service."

"I won't say too much then."

"The night manager's got the decency to pretend he's doing something on the other side of the room."

"Ah." A pause, as her sister seemed to consider the circumstances and Edith rolled her eyes into the dim hall. _Sybil, he's across the room and you're practically whispering on a private line. God, she can be dramatic sometimes._ Of course, if Sybil knew her sister was listening to every word, she probably would not have decided to tell the man on the other end, "I miss you and I wish very much you were here now."

"So do I."

"I wish we were back at the cottage. Like last night."

On that, Edith felt her face get hot- she knew she _really_ _should_ stop listening- but she couldn't seem to force herself to hang up. She had never had a private telephone conversation with a beau, and it was fascinating to be a voyeur, to hear the striking change in Sybil's voice, which she always associated with earnestness or whining or both (trademarks of her place in the birth order), sound fuller, lower, commanding. _Womanly, _she supposed, though the idea that her little sister- she of muddied tights and stolen biscuits- could have grown into such a role made her snigger. And then there were the _silences _and the discovery that people in love communicate as much with ambient sound as with actual words, at least on the telephone.

_But wait, what was this about the cottage and last night..._?(!)

Edith and Mary knew about the garage. But the chauffeur's cottage? Had Sybil been going there- and _at night_? Edith wasn't even sure she knew where it was on the estate. She knew it was a house though- a private house with no one else, a bedroom _with a bed_, a bathroom with a bathtub, _probably liquor and_ _God knows what else_... _books_, she guessed, _and_ _notebooks, a kitchen_. Actually, come to think of it, that sounded a rather wonderful place to escape to. Maybe it wasn't as illicit as she'd first imagined; maybe it was a place to just _be_.

"I could come to you," Branson offered. "It's not impossible."

"Did you leave the spare key under the rock?"

"Yes." He paused, then asked, "Do you want me to come?"

"Yes. And no." Her final answer was delivered with great reluctance and restraint. "Tomorrow. But I can't come for breakfast. I should stay close."

"Alright. When?"

"Come after tea, the house should be quiet then. I'll meet you at the gates."

"I'll be there."

"Tom?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Despite her general illiteracy in love, Edith knew her sister and she understood perfectly the full weight of that expression. Sybil never had any trouble saying what she would do, but she always struggled to say how she felt; for her, it was the exact opposite. Edith, a prodigious diarist, had always found Sybil's impediment incomprehensible (Edith would express herself infinitely to someone, if only she had a someone who wanted to hear it) and an effusive, emotional Irish workingman who can't seem to keep his mouth shut seemed a curious match for her sister.

But maybe not, Edith reconsidered as she heard him gently coax, "Do you feel better? A little, at least?"

"I don't know that I feel better," Sybil answered after thinking on it for a moment, "but I do feel braver. Whatever happens."

"I'm glad of it. Sleep well, love. _Tá grá agam duit._" Edith thought the line might be breaking up until Branson explained the garbled sounds. "The night manager doesn't speak Gaelic."

"You hope." Edith could hear her sister smiling. _Oh God, they even have their own language._

"Nah. I don't care if he hears."

"I know you don't," she chuckled.

"I"ll see you tomorrow then?"

"_Ar ndoigh,_" she replied to his audible delight.

"I can't believe you remembered that!"

"I can't believe you'd think I'd forget."

"Alright then... here's a new one for you: _fíor is síor._" It was the same two syllables repeated, with an _ish_ in between.

"That's an easy one. What's it mean?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

Edith waited until they had hung up to replace the receiver, marveling a bit at what she had heard and how different it was from what she had presumed.

* * *

><p>It was not hard to figure<em>.<em>

There was a terrible clattering above and a moment later, the youthful occupant of room 4B arrived at the bottom of the stairs- following in the footsteps of Lord Grantham, who had stormed through the lobby and blown through the door much the same, about twenty minutes previous.

And in between, there was the telephone call.

In the middle of the night, a young woman who did not give her name, said only that she wished to speak to a recently-arrived guest: "_I believe he is room 4B_."

Hence, the night manager found himself rapping on the door with that number because, despite his appeals to wait until morning, the young woman had insisted- nay, _demanded_- it be done now. _"I am so sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but there is a telephone call for you-" _

The young man was nodding before the sentence concluded. He got dressed without asking a single question.

He did not ask because an urgent midnight telephone call could only be from _her_.

And when a very on-edge man, whose identity would still be known to everyone even if his name were not on this hotel, presented himself at the front desk the next day demanding that, despite hotel policy, he must be allowed to call on room 4B without announcement, it became evident who that _her_ must be.

_No_, thought the manager, _it is not hard to figure what's happened, _as the front door to the hotel slammed for the second time that hour and a second angry man disappeared down the street in the direction of the Abbey.

* * *

><p>He had, until now, given Lord Grantham the benefit of the doubt- he was a father, it was a shock, he loved his daughter. <em>Never again<em>, Tom fumed. The error of that assumption was exposed the minute he pulled out his checkbook. _To negotiate a price for his daughter_, as if she were a carpet at a market bazaar. Lord Grantham had even come prepared for a bit of a haggle- he admitted as much!- thinking Tom would want to milk breaking with Sybil for all it was worth. Perhaps he could have even proposed a bonus payment upon his Lordship's choice of a husband discovering she had indeed not been _seduced_ by the former driver.

Maybe that transaction would be too crass even for Lord Grantham. Maybe not.

But there was no question that Lord Grantham had absolutely no doubt, not one hint of doubt in his mind as he walked from the big, grand house to the the hotel that bore his name, nor when he ascended the stairs to room 4B and pulled out his pen, that _his will would be done_. He was certain that, in this quiet room, they could reach agreement about his daughter's value, Tom would cash his check and vanish, but not before they shook on it, like _gentlemen_.

_She is invaluable to me _is what he should have said but of course he didn't, one never has the perfect comeback when it's needed. It took one bewildered "_What_?" before he could even understand the offer, because the whole proposition was so preposterous, so utterly surreal, he was surprised the furniture hadn't started melting. Because _surely he couldn't mean_...

He had, though. He had meant it, didn't falter, didn't even look abashed, didn't know why he should _be_ abashed to

_take _

_out _

_his _

_checkbook._

The_ indignity._ To her. Not to him, _to her_. _Because there isn't enough money in the world._ _Because he is her fecking father and he should fecking _know_ that. _Because she loves him and would continue to love him because Tom would never tell her what happened today in his room at the Grantham Arms. If she knew, she would never speak another word to her father- he knew it too, Tom saw the flash of fear in his eyes as he impotently directed Tom to leave town. _ Leave? Are you joking? Your best hope now is Sybil leaves without hating you._ And because they would leave, Tom would hold his tongue, despite his disinclination to protect Lord Grantham's relationship with his daughter and his strong belief that Sybil would be better off telling him _where he can fecking go_.

God, he wanted to. He spent the rest of the walk expelling silent curses at His Lordship, hoping to have cooled most of his ire by the time he arrived at Sybil's soon-to-be former home. When he reached the gates and saw her coming down the driveway in that gray uniform, minus the cap and apron-_ like the old days_, he thought with a smile that was interrupted by an echoed, "_What will you take_?"- and his heart broke a little for her because it wasn't the sun or the stars, or immortal omniscience; the answer was nothing and certainly not something as small and meager as money.

_But there's no need of it, _he reminded himself as she stepped straight into his arms.

They agreed on a short walk. Mama had taken a turn for the worse, she informed him, but the doctor and Papa were with her now. He nearly choked at the mention of her father.

"Are _you_ unwell?" she asked alarmed.

"Nope, just- swallowed wrong," he coughed.

"Alright."

She looked him over with trained and concerned eyes, a survey she repeated periodically as they sat on the sun-warmed bank along the brook that ran behind the estate, on alert for any potential indication of illness. She found none, of course. Other than that, they didn't say much- he could tell from her wan color she hadn't slept much or well and he was too upset from the earlier encounter to make idle chatter. Besides, no topic seemed appropriate when her mother was fighting for her life.

So they sat together, the birds singing unaware as Sybil pulled at blades of grass, knotting them in several different ways.

"This one's a sailor's knot," she explained as he watched.

He leaned back on his hands. "You'd make a better sailor than me."

"And you grew up on the ocean."

"I know, right?"

She handed him a finished one. "Here. So your boat doesn't leave without you." He thanked her and put it in his pocket. "I've never thought about my parents dying," she said suddenly, without preamble. "Working in a war hospital, I only ever saw young people die. I think I've forgotten what's normal."

He didn't know what to say- he didn't want to do that thing people did and lie and say she would be fine. He settled on a point of fact. "Your mother is still very young."

She turned her face to his for a blink, then looked down at her hands, twisting a blade. "Is your father dead?"

He was still looking at her and did not look away when he answered, "I don't know." He hadn't thought about it in quite some time. "Maybe. Probably," he amended. "It's been twenty years since I saw him and he wasn't in such good shape then."

"You don't have to talk about it. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's alright. And of course you can ask." Sybil was relieved to see, in his open demeanor, that it really didn't seem to bother him. "It wasn't a shock," he told her. "No dramatic exit or anything like that. I remember him not being around much and then at some point, he stopped being around at all."

"It must have been very hard for your mother, with young children," she mused. "And for you as well, of course."

"It was hard in some ways. But in some ways, it was better."

"I'm sorry for that," she rued. "Truly."

He shrugged. "I appreciate the sentiment, but don't waste it on me. There's far worse childhoods in life than mine, that's for sure." From what he read in the newspapers, from what he had witnessed on his own street, there were many children whose every prayer would be answered, for one reason or another, if their parents disappeared. Stories like those, he suspected, had not penetrated the walls of the big, grand house, but now was not the time for a teachable moment.

"I know it might be hard to believe from what I tell you," she began quietly, "but we had a happy childhood. We were a happy family. You probably don't believe that because you don't know my parents this way, but they really loved us. And we were much closer than other families like ours. My father was always taking us on outings and my mother- goodness! You can't tell an American woman it's not proper to hug and kiss her children. I honestly think she would have divorced my father and taken the three of us to live a scandalized life in an apartment on Park Avenue or something, if he hadn't secretly loved it too."

_No._ He definitely did not think of the Granthams in that way.

"It only ever changed when all this marriage business came up," she went on, with a current of bitterness. "I knew it even when it started with Mary, even though I was still a child myself. When my parents told Mary she'd have to marry Patrick- she knew it was coming, she had been raised to expect it- but when it actually happened, it just changed. She would resist and want to know why Downton shouldn't just be hers. She didn't want to do it, Tom. Her life had just started- she was in London and meeting people for the first time- but it was already over for her. When she came back and Patrick would be here, she'd smile through dinner, but she'd be in the worst mood after everyone had gone to bed. She created this fiction that she was incapable of love- Mary, _my sister_, who used to snuggle me in her bed and stroke my hair when I was sick would say this, as if I would ever believe it- but as I got older, I understood that was easier than wanting love and never being able to have it. She didn't love Patrick. Our aunt told her once, if she could just hold out for five or ten years, do her duty, bear a son, she and Patrick could probably '_come to an understanding_.' My father chastised her, by the way, for using that phrase in front of me. Rosamund said I wouldn't know what it meant, but I did. Ten _years_? Spend ten years with someone you don't love, have _children_ with them, for the reward of agreed-upon infidelity? How can anyone think that's a way to live?"

"I don't know."

"She would have done it though," Sybil said without judgment. "She would have married him. Just like she'll probably marry Richard Carlisle."

"Maybe it will work out. You say it worked for your parents."

"Maybe," she said, conveying nothing but disbelief. "And if not..." She shook her head. "I suppose we could have all been happy forever, if only we'd never had to grow up." She pushed herself up. "I should get back to the house to check on Mama."

He rose to follow her, feeling disconcerted that her outpouring had ended so abruptly and without reply- he had come to know by now that she tended to reveal herself in deep, but infrequent bursts and it could be a long time before another one came. So he grabbed her hand from a pace behind her, turning her to face him. "You'll have it again, that family," he said softly, clasping both her hands in his. "We both will."

She smiled. "I know we will." She reached up and pressed her lips softly to his.

On the walk back to the gate, she suddenly turned to him. "Oh! I almost forgot- the words, from last night, what did they mean?"

He almost felt bashful saying them now, in the broad afternoon daylight. "_Fíor is síor- _it means_ 'e__ternal and true_.'"

"Oh, that's lovely." And then she started to laugh.

"What?"

"It reminds me of those pocket novels they sell at the bookstore," she told him, her eyes brightening for the first time that afternoon. "The ones with the same line on the cover: '_The Great Story_, abridged.'"


	41. Chapter 41: Wednesday 1919 Part I

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! _

_Also re: Gaelic- because it wasn't outlawed during Tom's lifetime, and because he was educated by the pro-nationalist church and not the English and because he comes from an ardently political and republican family, I'm taking artistic license and saying he learned it._

_I'm going to leave a comment in the review section re: Robert/Sybil if interested. _

* * *

><p><strong>Wednesday<strong>

**1919**

Monday was the funeral and on Tuesday, Mr. Swire left directly to head back to London. He seemed to have developed an aversion to the house, this place where Lavinia had died.

But neither the passage of the funeral nor the departure of the bereaved father lifted the atmosphere of mourning. It hung, heavy and low, swollen with unshed tears, over this house about to lose its daughter. In the eerie stillness, Robert walked among the sympathy flowers, fingered the petals, reflected on a life cut down far too soon, and turned around more than once thinking he was hearing the tinkling of a music box.

_That's right_, he remembered the third time. _Martha sent the music box for the christening_, along with a note: What does a newborn want with flowers?

_She did love that music box_.

So much that he had once speculated to Carson, who had followed the infernal tune to find His Lordship bouncing little Lady Sybil around the library one night, "_we may have a future Mozart on our hands_." Alas not. Years later, watching her dance in her white dress, full of confidence and grace, he thought _she will be a future something though_.

It was not to be this.

On the morning of that Wednesday, the house awoke as it normally did. The paper was ironed, the tea was steeped. Breakfast was prepared and Carson laid four places, for the final time.

Robert sat down stiffly. "Morning, Carson," he said, accepting the paper and forcing himself to make conversation as he normally would. "Any news?"

As it happened, there was news that could not be avoided- the siege of someplace called Limerick, complete with a photo of the emblem of the Queens Crown soaked in blood. The RIC officer it belonged to was dead. "I have not had the time to look, my Lord."

It took two sips for Lord Grantham to find the story below the fold and Carson felt a pang in his own heart as the horror of realization crossed his employer's face. He loved those girls. _What a disgrace, an absolute abomination, that that man should rip apart a family like this_. And Lady Sybil- _I expected better from her_.

It was at that moment that Sybil appeared, dressed in a plain blouse and travelling skirt, her hair pulled back in a bun of her own doing. Robert wondered the next time he would see her, what she would look like, and found it hard to swallow.

She felt a bit smacked by the hostility in the breakfast room. "Good morning," she mumbled, ducking into her chair and feeling more than a bit uncomfortable as Carson poured her tea.

Her father would not look at her. "Would you like some of the paper?" he inquired blandly.

Having not seen the front page, she did not know he was baiting her. She smiled in his direction. She was determined not to fight, not today. There was no reason. "No, thank you. I'll save it to read on the way."

He wished for Mary or Edith, for a buffer, for something other than expectant silence and the feeling of her watching him from under her lashes. "What time is the train?"

"Noon."

Did she expect a tearful farewell and well-wishes? A fatherly pat on the head? _A last laugh and game of cards, for old time's sake_? She should take his blessing- his _resignation_- and run, before he came to his senses about that. "Will Pratt take you?"

"No, Edith is driving me. If you don't mind, of course," she added quickly, in a show of deference.

His mouth formed a thin line of non-response. _As if you care if I mind_. "It's fine," he replied shortly.

They returned to silence. He took some satisfaction in seeing her eating only unbuttered toast (telltale of a nervous stomach) but her features- serene and dreamy- made him think those nerves were likely excitement, rather than anxiety or regret, and everything in his mouth went sour.

He pushed his chair back and stood up. "See me before you leave," he ordered and walked out of the room.

* * *

><p>Mary woke on Wednesday with a heavy heart, after a restless night with very little sleep.<p>

Some time after midnight, awake in the dark, Mary heard the doorknob jigger. It made her smile and want to cry. Her sister popped in- wearing her nightdress, no robe- and closed the door. "Make room?" she whispered.

Mary pulled the coverlet back. "I was thinking about you."

"Anything repeatable?" Sybil quipped in a game, low voice as she slid in.

They lay facing each other on opposite pillows, each sister's features indistinguishable to the other's unadjusted eyes. "I was thinking about you coming in here, the night before we left for my presentation weeping inconsolably- _absolutely inconsolable_- because you were certain I was not coming back."

"How old was I then- five, six?" Sybil pretended not to know.

"Twelve, darling." The sisters laughed and quieted. "And here we are."

"What I remember about that night," Sybil said softly, after a moment, "is how you tried to tell me that some things would change, but some wouldn't, and I could always come to you, even when you lived somewhere else with your own family." Mary remembered too, every word. "I remember not believing you," Sybil continued, her voice faraway, closer to 1909 than now, "and feeling that you were patronizing me, giving me the same sort of tripe adults always talk to children because they think children can't handle hard truths or they're too stupid to understand."

"Oh, I remember. You wouldn't even look at me the next day."

"I tried to hate you a little," Sybil admitted. "I thought it would make the inevitable easier."

Mary heard the slight uptick in octave on the end, proof of a little sister's leading question; on another night, she might have been exasperated. "Are you asking if I hate you a little now?"

"Do you?"

"No. I don't." _I understand more than you know_. "Not even a little."

"We are in a similar situation now though, aren't we?" Sybil posed. "It's not like you'll just come to tea at my new house. _It's not fairyland_, after all." She caught herself dangerously close to being ungrateful to her sister and quickly changed course. "I've never properly thanked you. I know it wasn't what you wanted," she said, humble and contrite. "But you let me decide and I am forever in your debt for that."

Mary, for all her outward, projected stoicism, was the most emotional of the three and upon hearing that remark from Sybil, wanted to cry out, _Don't ever put yourself in anyone's debt- not mine, not our father's, not the driver's. _But she couldn't say it, as it would have made no sense at all to the listener, so she gritted only, "You owe me nothing. _Nothing_."

"Mary? May I ask you something?"

"Always." _  
><em>

Sybil took her hand and held it a moment, before venturing, "Are you quite sure about Sir Richard?"

The question came as a surprise to Mary. _It's like she knows, even though she can't possibly.._. Because she did not lie to Sybil she deflected, "You've quite enough to worry about, darling. You don't need to worry about me."

"I want you to be happy," Sybil impressed. "I can't _not_ worry about that." And again- _because- _Mary smiled but did not respond.

Though she did not want it to end, this last night in the old rooms, Mary felt obliged to consider that it was very late and Sybil would need all her energies tomorrow- and frankly, in all the days to come. "You better get some sleep," she advised her sister, who then pushed herself out of bed with a yawn. "After all, who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

"Oh, Mary." Sybil looked back over her shoulder and, in the shadows, Mary could make out only the white ribbon that held her hair and a familiar, beautiful smile, not so dissimilar from her own. She could have been twelve again. "Don't you know? That's the best part."

After the door closed, Mary laid back on her pillow and tried to think back to 1909, how she imagined then her life would turn out, but couldn't. She woke up wondering, then thought the forgetfulness was probably a mercy.

* * *

><p>Packing had been easy and completed well before Wednesday. Sybil was taking only two suitcases, with the most basic amenities- her plainest clothes, her hairbrush, a few photographs and keepsakes- but mostly she was leaving her old life behind in England. Consequently by eight, with breakfast finished, she had really nothing to do but kill time before the train. She had to say goodbye to her mother, which she was dreading for its guaranteed waterworks, and see her father, which she was dreading for other reasons.<p>

Wanting to stall and figuring she would be sitting for a long time on the train, she decided to take a last walk around the grounds, where she found Thomas, as ever, smoking behind the servants' entrance. There was no one around, so he called out to her, "You want one?"

She grinned and shrugged."Sure. Why not?" she called back, coming over._  
><em>

"Nurse Crawley is back," he teased as he offered her a match.

"Not Nurse _Crawley_," she corrected. She took a deep, long drag- her first since the hospital. Lighting up again felt empowering, along with dizzying and kind of nauseating. But she didn't care who saw and no one could tell her she couldn't and that was worth _anything_. She looked sidelong at him. "You've heard, I assume."

"Heard what?" he posed with perfect innocence, making them both chuckle. "Does your boyfriend know you smoke?"

She rolled her eyes. "He's not my _boyfriend_."

"Fine._" _Thomas rolled his right back and amended, in mocking falsetto, "Your _fiance_."

She pondered a minute before answering honestly, "I don't know. I doubt he would care if he did."

"That'll make you the luckiest wife in the world." He threw her a conspiratorial smile. "One with a husband that lets you do whatever you please."

"I don't know about _whatever_," she laughed. "But I'm going back to nursing and he thinks it's terrific."

"Really?"

"Well, I don't have a job yet. But I'm sure I'll be able to find one."

"They'd be lucky to have you," he said and meant it.

"Thank you, Thomas. Really."

She had forgotten how fast he smoked (and she did to keep up with him) and before she knew it, he was tapping two more out of the pack. "One for the road?" he asked.

"Ah... I shouldn't," she replied, taking it anyway. "I'll probably faint. Just promise you'll rouse me so I don't miss my train!"

"Not a problem." They took in the wan, milky morning, the quiet, the company. Sybil found herself feeling stronger, more confident, just from this short and rather small-chat conversation. _Talking about her new life. What she would do_. In a few hours, she would be free. She almost had to pinch herself.

"So, do you think you'll miss your old life?" Thomas asked, breaking her reverie.

"Not in the least," she muttered, though she knew as soon as she'd said it that she had answered too quickly. "Of course, I'll miss the people." He gave her a small smile, stubbed his butt into the ground. "But do you know, Thomas? Sometimes something's just not right. You can fight it, but you can't change it. Not when the it is yourself."

He knew there was a reason he had always liked her, despite her entitlement and obviously questionable taste in men. "I think you've got a lot of guts."

"So do you." She was looking very seriously at him. "You really do."

"Well." Thomas shuffled, uncharacteristically embarrassed by the praise, its sincerity and his suspicion this was her way, in what would be likely their last encounter in life, of acknowledging that she knew, had always known, there was something the same in them. "Well, Nurse Crawley-for-now," he started, straightening up and turning to face her, "good luck to you."

"And you, Corporal." She held out her hand and he shook it, amused by the egalitarian gesture. "Thomas, please don't take this wrong, but I do hope that if I ever come back here, I won't see you." She smiled. "But if you ever find yourself in Dublin, do look me up- I owe you more than a few of those."

* * *

><p>If she insisted on commanding the thoughts of the house today, Robert was determined they be of happier times. And, seated at his desk in the library, it was hard to imagine a more ideal day than that one in London, in the June before the war...<p>

He and his wife had successfully steered their youngest daughter through what would be their final first season as parents. After Sybil's presentation, Cora had leaned over and whispered, "_Well done, Papa_" to which he had squeezed her hand and replied, "_You as well, Mama." _He felt like a king that night, sitting in an obscenely comfortable chair in an oak-paneled room, receiving one compliment after another about his lovely family, his charming and beautiful daughters, and looking forward to a subsequent, private celebration with his wife.

"Ah, Robert. Congratulations are in order." An old friend, the father of two daughters himself, offered him a cigar and a broad, sincere smile.

"Congratulate me after they're all married!" Robert quipped, accepting both.

"My oldest turns ten next month," his friend told him, taking the adjacent chair with an unbelieving shake of his head. "I dare say it's impossible for me to think of giving them up to someone else."

"Wait until they're older," Robert rued. "They make it easier for you, trust me."

"Ha!" The men laughed, relished their cigars for a spell. "I had the pleasure of a brief conversation with your daughter earlier. She's a very fine young woman."

"Thank you. Yes, she is. I'm glad to see her do so well here." His friend's eyebrow piqued and he found himself confessing, "She's been on a bit of rebellious streak lately."

"Oh? Demanding to pick her own clothes and such?"

"Would that it were that!" What he wouldn't give for pants over bloodied shirts. "No. Of late, it's politics."

"_Politics_!"

The other father was properly aghast, prompting Robert to fib, "Oh, it's nothing much- the women's vote."

"Oh. Well." His friend's reaction was quickening that old unsettling feeling in Robert, the one he had been having since Bates had unwittingly informed him that Sybil had attended- nay, lied and connived to attend- the rally. "It's no more than wearing buttons about the house and proclaiming solidarity, I'm sure."

"Yes. Mostly." _Buttons_? Try an angry, red gash cutting across her forehead to her temple- conspicuous enough that Cora had come down to breakfast every morning for the past two weeks, anxious to inspect the healing progress as the day of her presentation drew near- an action that only exacerbated the tense post-count climate of the house.

_"Let me see it."_

_"No." Sybil tried to shrug away, but her mother's hands were firm around her face. "_Mama_. Stop it!"_

_"It looks as bad as it did the night it happened! Maybe we should call Dr. Clarkson and see if he can give her something- an ointment, something."_

_"I don't _need_ Dr. Clarkson. There's nothing wrong with me."_

_"I suppose we can say she fell off her horse."_

_"_I'm_ not going to say that. Besides, no one will believe it, I could out-ride all of my friends with my eyes closed and they know it."_

_"Well, we're certainly not going to say you got knocked unconscious at a brawl with anarchists!" her mother finally snapped and for once, Robert actually saw his own parental frustrations dealing with Sybil mirrored in his wife._

That morning, a little powder and a strategically-placed tendril had done the trick. And Sybil looked radiant and he doubted that anyone had noticed. But _he_ knew it was there- that underneath the white dress and ornate pins, the soft light and smiles of taken young men- there was something that was on the skin, something that was just being covered up, would only ever be just covered up.

Since the blood, Cora had stopped insisting, "_It's just the age, Robert_. _She's discovering herself_. _It's a phase, it will pass_."

_"I might believe that if we hadn't raised two girls through this age without either of them ever taking up canvassing."_

_"She needs something of her own."_

_"Mary and Edith never did."_

_"Mary has Downton."_

_"And Edith?"_

_"Edith has always been a late bloomer. Not everyone goes through it at seventeen. But Sybil is and we just need to be patient and ride out the storm._"

Robert jolted back to the oak-paneled room; now the air felt stuffy and hard to breathe. He flicked the ash from his cigar rather clumsily and nearly hit the other man's lap. "I'm so sorry."

"No matter," his friend smiled. "You're allowed your thoughts this day. It's bound to be an emotional one for a father."

"Are sons easier?" Robert wondered aloud. "Because daughters are _complicated_. Far more so than I imagined." He didn't know why, but he couldn't seem to stop talking. "Sybil is bright, very spirited, determined. But also curious and headstrong, and more than a bit spoiled, which I suppose she can't be entirely blamed for." The fathers laughed before Robert continued thoughtfully, "In a way, she's the luckiest of our three- she has every advantage and none of the constraints. Not that _she_ sees it that way, of course," he regretted, thinking of her threat to leave and never speak to him again. No matter how thoughtless and impulsive, or how she immature she would think it down the road, he would never forget hearing it and it would never cease to make him sad. "My eldest would love the freedom she has. They just _want_ so much..."

He glanced up and saw his companion was lost. Well, that was understandable. _His eldest is not even ten and probably still idolizes her father_.

The sound of spring rain falling against the library windows brought Robert back to the present. He felt sick from discovering that even his happier memories had shadows- how had he forgotten the ominous wound, the disapproving face of his fellow father, the gathering fear that his house had a crack in its foundation. The menacing feeling that her threat was not mindless at all and in it, she had found her power.

He sprang up from his chair- the library ledger was compelling him. He turned back the pages for what seemed like an eternity, until he found the logs from the spring of 1914. _T. Branson- chauffeur_, in neat print, appeared practically ever other line, mixed in with- sporadically, at first- a few books checked out to the initials _SPC_. He thumbed through the years and a pattern emerged: a book checked out first to _T. Branson- chauffeur_ and three weeks later, to _SPC- _Mill, Tocqueville_, _Voltaire, Virgil, too many to keep track of, all the way to this past autumn, and Yeats, checked out solely by _SPC_.


	42. Chapter 42: Wednesday 1919 Part II

This chapter marks a big milestone. Thank you so, so much for all the kind reviews and comments. Little A/N at bottom. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Wednesday<strong>

**1919**

Cora had not cried. Maybe she was still too spent from illness or maybe she was too angry. Or maybe a part of her knew that this, while not at all what she wanted, was ultimately what was best for her daughter. Whatever the reason, she sat up in bed that morning intermittently reading the newspaper, waiting for Sybil to come say goodbye and thinking about how their family would be irreversibly changed today. And she felt nothing- not numb, just nothing- a feeling that was almost like peace.

On account of her unexpected illness, they had not spoken more than a few words since the announcement in the drawing room; Robert had been the one to break the news to Cora, the night after the funeral, that Sybil would be leaving today. She showed up around ten, hovering in the doorway, almost shyly, unsure of her approach. Cora beckoned her with a weary smile and open arms and then Sybil was nestled beside her mother, who started fussing with her collar- and her hair, and her plans- as if she were a little child again.

"Why is your blouse damp?" she asked, frowning.

"Oh, I was out for a walk and got caught in the rain."

"Is it raining?"

"Just a bit."

"You must be sure to change. You can't sit on the train in wet clothes all afternoon, you'll catch cold." Her grown daughter assured her she would not. By now, Edith would be prickly and Mary would have left the room, but her youngest had always suffered this American mothering (overly-involved and overly-intimate) better than her sisters. "When is the ferry tomorrow?"

"Eleven o'clock. Or maybe eleven-thirty?" she wondered aloud. "I'm not sure. Tom made all the arrangements."

_Tom._ _Yes, right, that's what Sybil had called him in the drawing room_. Cora remembered being surprised to hear it because she had always seen his name listed on the staff papers as _T._ or _Thomas Branson_. But it appeared he was Tom to her. _Tom, betrothed to Sybil_. _Tom, who is to be our first son-in-law_. _Tom_, who her husband hated but she could not because he would be her daughter's only ally, her sole protector in her new country.

She regarded Sybil, lost in thought about her travels surely, and felt a twinge of resentment that she was robbing them of this ritual. Not just the marriage of a daughter, but the_ first_ marriage of a child in their family. Marriage is not just a passage for the intended, but for the parents too- the chance to complete and reflect on and celebrate a very great project, begun decades ago, in this very room, with that first heralding infant cry.

Cora sighed. There was a way these things were done and they were done that way for a reason; but, as ever, Sybil was determined to do them differently. Which led to her next line of questioning. "What about tonight?"

Sybil glanced over, her face immediately assuming a guarded and defensive mask. "What about it?"

Cora threw her a look. "I'm sure he can't afford two rooms."

"Really, Mama," she clucked, with a shake of her head. "Would you prefer me to stay alone all night, all by myself in some strange hotel in Liverpool?"

That challenge sent Cora back to her childhood and the ghost towns her father had shown her, the HOTEL sign waving over some creaky, wooden firetrap of a building- the heart of a fly-by-night place- where drunks and whores and criminals converged with transients shedding their pasts. "I suppose not," she conceded, now properly terrified. "It probably won't be the Savoy." Cora knew then she would not sleep tonight.

"No," Sybil snorted in agreement, then softening, tried to convince her mother, "It's really going to be fine. You'll see."

But her breezily quixotic expression only deepened Cora's concern. "Discuss it beforehand," she instructed frankly. "The sleeping arrangement. Don't wait until it's too late."

"Mama_-_" the eyeroll was already underway.

"_Sybil_." Cora had rarely, if ever, addressed her youngest so sharply. She continued, strained. "If you want to be on your own, you will need to be a little more wise." _ _I should have taught you all better_. _She had placed propriety over preparedness with Mary; she would not make the same mistake with Sybil.

"I'm not going to _be_ on my own," Sybil couldn't help but refute. As to her mother's fear of her own naivete, she thought of telling her about Swan Inn, the garage, _"that is all until..._," Tom's cottage and Tom's bed, but it didn't seem the time, so she simply said, "He's a good man. You needn't worry about anything like that."

Cora felt a lump in her throat as she realized she had no choice but to believe her, as she would not be there for the outcome- not in Liverpool, not any time afterward either. "Have you seen the paper today?"

"No, why?"

"The violence."

"In Limerick. I know." Sybil shifted, discomforted now by her own unvoiced worries. Tom had opined many times about "_real_ journalists" when they were both just readers. He had even admiringly repeated the quip from a journalist who had been forced into protection after exposing a top minister's ties to a crime syndicate: "_If someone isn't trying to kill you, you're not doing your job_." Now, when she saw newspaper photos of bloodied bodies, she found herself wondering not about the victims, but about the reporters who had followed them, _had they escaped unscathed_? "It's been going on there for awhile."

"Is Limerick near to Dublin?"

"No, it's on the other side. Tom's got an uncle from there."

"Well, don't make any plans to visit Tom's uncle then."

"We won't," she said wanly.

Cora sensed the change in her. "Sybil? Are you alright?"

"Yes. Just-" she faltered, then clammed up. "A long day ahead. I should probably..."

She couldn't quite bring herself to say it which was good, because Cora couldn't quite bear to hear it. In the final minutes with her daughter, there was really only one thing Cora needed to know. "You're sure you love him?"

"Oh, yes."

"And you are sure he loves you?" Before Sybil could reflexively say yes, Cora elaborated, "Enough to take care of you? To provide for you, to be faithful to you? You and I may not like it, but marriage is not a democratic institution. You are, in many ways, putting your life in this man's hands. Are you absolutely sure you can trust him with your life?"

"Oh, Mama, I never- " A pleased blush rose over her cheeks. "I never imagined that anyone could ever love me so much. It's impossible, really."

_No, _Cora thought._ It's not impossible at all__._ "Well then," she sighed, "I hope he proves your faith." Sybil bristled slightly, but Cora stayed her irritation with a hand over hers. "I mean that truly. As your mother, I mean it with all my heart."

Sybil knew she did. "Thank you. Truly." Her mother, no matter how much she didn't approve, had always tried. It was her mother she went to when she wanted to knock on doors for the women's vote, her mother who had given her permission to go to the election. Her mother who, despite her initial opposition, had become a vocal supporter of her nursing. Her mother who had always seemed to_ understand _this suspicion she had carried for so long but only now could say out loud. "I don't belong here. It's a hard thing to say about your home, but it's true."

"It's a hard thing to hear from your child," Cora replied sadly, "even if I know it is."

"I don't know that I belong in Ireland," Sybil shrugged. "If not, perhaps we'll go to London. Or- who knows?- maybe even to America someday." That struck Cora as terribly funny. "What is it?"

"I can't believe- I crossed the ocean, at just about your age, because I wanted a different life. And now, here you are, my daughter, going back the way I came."

Sybil smiled. "I took the picture with me. The one I love, of you standing in front of the ship in New York harbor."

Hearing her daughter say that, Cora realized why she had not cried. Because that morning on the seaport pier, she had been trembling with excitement and anticipation, hope for the future... And now that future was seated beside her, the last of her children grown. Her youthful faith, overflowing into the Atlantic, had been vindicated; what reason could there be for tears?

She hugged her daughter tight. "Oh Mama- you always say you want it to be like _Little Women_," Sybil consoled into her hair_. _"Don't you remember, how Jo goes to the city and Amy goes abroad? But it all works out in the end, doesn't it?" She pulled back and Cora could see the faintest sheen over her eyes. "Even if Marmee did worry terribly."

"Marmee wanted abandon her vexing girls and go be a singer in Paris."

"She did not!"

"That's _Marmee's Story- _it hasn't been written yet," Cora expounded with a look. "Maybe I'll write it."

"I think you should," Sybil laughed. "I would read it."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because Marmee could never give up her daughters. No matter how much they might deserve it." Sybil gave a guilty half-nod, eyes lowered, and Cora saw she was biting her lip. Despite her proud and deserved reputation in the family of not being a crier, Cora knew otherwise. She was her mother, after all. "I will always be your mother," she said _sotto voce_, putting her hands on her face and placing a kiss on her forehead. "Any time, anywhere. Remember that."

"I will," Sybil promised inaudibly.

"And if you don't write-" she warned.

"I will."

"Good." Cora gave her a minute to compose herself, before prompting, "You'd better get moving." Sybil thought how she would miss her Mama's familiar, American vernacular and was hit with the thought that her own children might have a similar experience, her English voice to their Irish ears. "You still need to change and you don't want to miss your train."

"I have to see Papa as well."

"Be kind," Cora directed.

The comment won her a departing exhibition of her daughter's notorious exasperation. "I have never _been_- oh, nevermind."

And then-

"I won't say goodbye, just _adieu._"_ Be wonderful, be brave, be _happy_, my girl. "A__dieu, _my darling. And don't forget to write." She kissed her goodbye, sniffed and promptly frowned with disapprobation.

"Sybil, have you been _smoking_?"

* * *

><p>At five to eleven, she came into the library. "Hello, Papa."<p>

Robert had been at his desk all morning, pen in hand but writing nothing, thinking of nothing but this encounter and what would follow. Now, he ripped a check from its book and handed it to her. He had agonized over the amount and in the end, had decided on a sum much less than he was prepared to pay the chauffeur. "As I promised."

It was nearly five figures. "That's very generous." Sybil's attitude toward her father had cooled since the conversation in the churchyard; despite his blessing, his demeanor had been relentlessly chilly. "More than I could expect. Thank you."

"Five thousand of it is money from your grandmama when you were born," he explained dryly, lest she get the wrong impression about the extent of his approval. "She didn't want all her money going to English men."

"Goodness, Grandmama!" She half-laughed, with a touch to her forehead, perfectly characteristic. "I haven't written her about any of this- though perhaps Mama has." It was funny, the quirks and foibles of people's personalities, which he had cataloged so well in his children. Edith would have beaten herself up openly for forgetting to write; Mary would have stewed inwardly for her failure to control information about herself. And Sybil- well, Sybil just laughed and would do it tomorrow, maybe.

"You can thank her when you do."

"I will." The tension between them was palpable and was pulled tighter as the clock started to chime. __One... Two... __To think, she was once his adored child. Neither of them thought it now, of course, but it lived in them. _Three... _

"I have to go."

_Four... __  
><em>

They stared at each other across the desk. She wanted to tell him how much his blessing meant to her. How she had struggled. How it had never been about beating him in some great battle of wills, no matter what he thought. How she did love her family, loved him. How she hoped, so much, that someday he might understand. "Papa..."

But the childlike, pleading appeal was more than he could bear today. "Then you better go," he cut her off, returning his eyes to the paperwork on his desk. "You wouldn't want to miss your train."

_Eleven_.

_Fine then, if that's how it's to be_. She would not grovel for his acceptance. She would leave.

"Oh, Sybil?"

She turned back. "Yes?"

"Tell Edith she's to come straight home afterward." He glanced over at the window where water was tracking fast down the panes. "This rain isn't letting up and the roads are bound to be a mess."

"I hear it rains quite a lot in Ireland," she said, though not particularly to him. He made a kind of noise in response. "Is that it then?" The question in her mind somehow found its way into the room.

It took all his resolve to meet her eyes- _his_ eyes, in truth; she was quite clearly stunned. "Do you need something else?" he asked evenly.

"No." She shook her head dumbly. "No, not at all."

One could be forgiven for thinking, as she was now, that he was deriving satisfaction from punishing her with his disinterest. But Robert Crawley was much too uncomplicated a man for that. What drove him now was one sincere, singular belief: she cannot have it both ways. She had made her choice and he had accepted it, but her almost-reflexive assumption that everything would be just as it would have been even if she changed all the rules and threatened to not to play anymore if he didn't play how she wanted to. He went back to pretending to work. "Safe journey," he wished, with a dismissive wave of his pen. At some point, he felt her turn and leave the room, heard her footsteps fade to silence.

He did not rise from his desk until the clock chimed again and the westbound train had left the station.

* * *

><p>"Did you see Papa?" Mary asked quietly as they stepped out into the driveway, where Edith was already in the driver's seat. Pratt was loading Sybil's suitcases.<p>

"I did." Her tone was clipped.

"How was he?"

"He was himself," Sybil said, climbing into the backseat. Then in a markedly more jovial voice, she hollered up front, "I see the rain's let up, Edith! It's rather an excellent day for travelling, I think." She settled in for a moment, then added, "Quite nice for a drive, too. You two should take the car after you drop me off. Go exploring, see what happens. Put a little adventure in your lives."

"Darling, you're more than enough adventure for all of us," Mary retorted, as Edith started the car.

* * *

><p>At the train station, Ladies Mary and Edith Crawley and Tom Branson, <em>nee<em> chauffeur, were initiated into the new dynamics and painstaking diplomacy surrounding the person they all loved. Edith pulled the car in and Sybil spotted Tom immediately, standing on the platform; her sisters exchanged wary glances as she waved him over, but to his credit, he hung back, not wanting to intrude on the family scene. In an unspoken contract, Mary and Edith decided to make their goodbyes in front of the station and cede the platform to him. Which Tom was more than fine with, except the girls' farewell was taking_ forever_ and the train crew was readying to depart and Mary and Edith certainly weren't going to carry Sybil's suitcases up the stairs. He finally settled on sending a porter as an intermediary to move things along.

"Pardon me, my ladies, but a Mr. Branson sent me for the luggage."

"Oh, right. I'm his wife," Sybil told the porter, ignoring her sisters' eyes nearly dropping out of their skulls. "He has our tickets and he can direct you where to put it. When does the train leave?"

"Ten minutes, madam," he informed her and went off with the luggage.

"His_ wife_?" Edith exclaimed.

"It's just easier to travel that way. Trust me- we've done this before," she reminded them. She turned to Edith first. "Now, hug me goodbye- quickly, so I can make my train."

"You're so clear-eyed!" Edith moaned as she obliged. "We're going to think you don't care for us."

"You know I do," Sybil assured, patting her back and releasing her. She turned to Mary, whose gloved fingers were already moving over her cheeks. Yes, Mama and Edith were teary because separations are sad. But this was different. Sybil saw the tension in Mary's forehead- how the salt was singeing her eyes- this wasn't farewell, this was _loss_. Any thought of the time and the train and the travelers bustling around them went out of her head as she hugged her sister and didn't let go. "Mary..."

Mary used the respite of Sybil's embrace to steel herself. She would not, after all these years of surviving, crumble outside of the town station, in front of the whole world. She would not force her baby sister to take care of her today. She let go of Sybil and wiped her eyes. "You must write us at least once a week."

Sybil understood perfectly what Mary was doing- finding her strength in her big sister role- and played along. "I'll be very busy, especially at the beginning..."

"_Every_ week. Promise," Mary ordered. "Or we'll come and get you.'

"You know we will," Edith chimed in.

"I really have to go," Sybil told her sisters. Tom had caught her eye from the platform and was motioning to the clock. To punctuate the point, the train conductor then cried out, "All aboard!"

"Be well, Sybil," Edith wished.

"Be _good,_" Mary corrected.

"Have lots of adventures!"

"Be safe. Eat properly." Mary wracked her mind for advice. "Boil the water, at least at first- you never know, where _you're_ going-"

"- I'm not going to the _jungle_, Mary!"

"Pace yourself. You don't have to take the whole country in the first month. Don't wear yourself out, it just invites illness."

"- I am a _nurse, _you know_."_

"And _please_ don't walk in the rain, as you so often do- you'll catch your death."

"- it's nearly summer!"

"And for God's sake, don't be so _trusting_ of people! You're not going to the town fair- you're going to the city now. So stand tall and look smart and never forget who you are. You'll have to be strong because Edith and I won't be there to look out for you." Edith blushed and smiled. _Edith and I__. __"_But," Mary considered with a small smile, "I doubt that will be a problem."

"_All aboard!_"

Sybil took each of their hands. "I'll see you both in a month for the wedding?" They nodded. "I love you both, so very much." A final squeeze of their hands and she turned, calling behind her, "Goodbye!"

"Goodbye, darling," Mary said, but Sybil was already bounding up stairs to the platform. Edith and Mary watched as Branson grabbed her hand and ushered her into the train car. "Well," Edith sighed, "we tried." The sisters laughed defeatedly, Mary wiping her cheeks as she did so.

They stood there and watched as train whistled and lurched forward- tentative at first, then faster as it found its speed, racing as fast as it could out of sight, bound for the coast.

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><p><em>AN: Yay we made it to Ireland! (Almost) This comes at the perfect time. I really do want to wrap this up by the start of S3. It was always intended as supplemental to the show and I'm a little hesitant about writing Ireland because I'm sure we'll get details of their life there in S3. And if see spoilers that have to do with S/B's life in Ireland and are so inclined, I would love it if you would PM me a heads up- I won't put any S3 spoilers in Lost Time, but I want to steer clear of writing anything that will directly contradict the canon. Thanks!_


	43. Chapter 43: Liverpool 1919

_Thank you so much as always for the reviews._

_When I started this story, this is the one chapter I knew I would write. Enjoy..._

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><p>The train rolled toward the coast and like the rain and the day, Yorkshire, where she had lived her whole life, became part of the past. The sun lit a radiant late-afternoon sky, an endless horizon, <em>the future<em>. In Liverpool, they stepped off the train platform into the warm embrace of a nascent summer, the air thick with salt and the din of a crowded city center. A foghorn in the distance was still loud enough to cut through the cacophony; a ship had set sail. _Tomorrow._

They hired a car to take them to the hotel, an unremarkable brick building on the street that ran parallel to the port, facing the docks. The room on the fifth floor was compact, tidy and impersonal, with faded wallpaper and over-starched linens, though it had a large window that, when its dark curtains were pulled wide, looked out onto white airborne seabirds, black anchored freighters and, at the right angle, glimpses of bottle-green water traced with drift and rope.

They dropped off their luggage and freshened up after the long train ride, before leaving for a walk and a stretch and to find something to eat. Neither of them had had lunch and they were both famished, but none of the restaurants they passed seemed to appeal.

"You know, I don't really feel like being inside and sitting down and being waited on," Sybil commented after they had decided against a third place. "We're by the ocean and it's so lovely out. I wish we could have a picnic!"

She laughed at that, but it gave Tom an idea. "Let's go back to those benches we saw." They doubled back to the shallow public pier, claiming one of the wooden benches, which is where Tom left her. "Wait here," he instructed, with a gleam in his eye.

"Where are you-"

"I'll be right back- _with_ dinner," he called back with a wave.

She quickly realized that even a few minutes of separation made her anxious today; she wasn't normally so dependent, but on _this_ day, she just needed to be with him. She was a Bedouin today- of nowhere, belonging to no one except him; he was literally her only friend in the world. Tomorrow, that would start to change- she would land on a new shore that would be hers now, meet his mother and maybe his siblings, start to lay the first few bricks in her new life. But tonight was the nadir; on the bench on this pier, she had nothing.

To stay these thoughts, she engrossed herself with the internal drama of a colony of seagulls playing out in front of the bench opposite her, until Tom returned no more than ten minutes later with two packages wrapped in newspaper and a wide grin. _He is terribly handsome_, she thought, backlit by the remains of the sinking sun. _And so relaxed and untroubled_. She felt a pang to remember how much of that trouble had sprung from her. Well, from his perfect love of her. Another man- _any_ other man- would have thrown in a long time ago and certainly before year three. She wondered if he knew- _you have my loyalty forever, Tom Branson- _but when he approached, she just smiled. "Have you taken to _eating_ newspapers now?" she teased him.

"Yes, devouring them figuratively wasn't enough," he retorted, offering one of the packages to her.

It was grease-stained and pungent. "What's this?"

"Dinner," he replied. "Have you ever had fish and chips?"

"Of course I've had fish-"

"No, not 'fish and something else.' It's one thing. _Fish-and-chips," _he clarified, taking a seat beside her and unwrapping what to Sybil appeared to be a steaming, rather frightful mess of something attempting to pass as food.

"_What_ in the world is a chip?"

"This." He held one out to her and promptly cracked up at her expression of horror. "It's just a potato, Syb!"

"I've never seen any potato that looked like that," she replied skeptically. "And I think Mrs. Patmore would agree!"

"It's sliced and fried. Just try it," he urged. She accepted it warily. "I promise you, it will change your_ life_."

"A sliced and fried potato?"

"Yes."

She wrinkled her nose. "It smells like vinegar."

"It _is_ vinegar."

"Yuck! Why would anyone put vinegar on a potato?"

"Would you quit carping and try it?"

She did finally take the tiniest nibble- he might have remarked "_For God's sake, it's not hemlock!"_ and then gloated as her attitude reversed dramatically as she chewed. "_Oh_," she remarked, after swallowing. "That's- why that's-"

"Good, right?"

"It's really _very_ good." She rendered her verdict whilst stealing a second from his plate. "I'm going to get fat in Ireland, if all the food is like this!"

His eyes cast over her, from her face to her shape and back again. "You'll look just fine," he responded in a way that should have made her blush, had she not left it with the rest of her old life back in Yorkshire. _And if there is any left, I shall have to leave it here,_ she thought.

* * *

><p>As starved as she had been, Sybil couldn't finish the dinner sized for a dockhand and so the seagulls were now crowded around in front of their bench, fighting for the leftovers.<p>

"This is a very cruel economy we've created," she remarked to Tom, after launching another chip into the fray where two of the nastiest little vultures were stabbing at it- and each other. The half-dozen others had assembled a sporting line behind them, hoping in vain for an errant throw or a bit of missed scrap.

He picked up a pebble and whipped it at the rump of one of the bullies. Both gulls snapped their heads up, glaring in their direction. "Oh, that wasn't nice," Sybil chided, as the indignant birds flapped and flew away.

"Look, I'm all for asking greedy buzzards to share, but if they don't, someone ought to step in." He threw a handful of chips to the rest of the seagulls. "Go on, eat up, before the big ones come back and steal it all." The birds descended ravenously on the food and Sybil noticed one skinny one with a bad leg who had been boxed out and was now hobbling around the perimeter, trying to find a way in.

"Tom, quick, hand me some more." He did and she crept over, careful not to scare him away, and tossed a little food in his direction. The bird jumped back and twitched, alternately afraid she would hurt him or the others would trample him to take it. But after a few seconds of consideration, his belly got the best of him and he hobbled over- with trepidation- and started eating, undisturbed.

"Poor little thing," she lamented, returning to the bench, "with his bad leg and empty stomach. What would he have done if we hadn't been here?"

"Gone hungry, probably." She threw him a look to which he shrugged. "It's the truth."

The seagulls ate and Tom's gaze drifted out to the sea, where the waves were lapping lazily in the breeze; the noise and activity in the city had died with the day, leaving a thoroughly pleasant, quiet evening in its wake. He reached his arm around the back of the bench, catching sight of some loose hair blowing around her face. _If this isn't perfect, it's pretty close_. He thought they must have looked a fine couple, on this pier with the ocean as a backdrop. But he could tell from her furrowed brow she was not swept up in a similar romantic notion- she was still worrying over the lame bird. "Everything is harder for him," she sighed.

He would have kissed her, were their hats not preventing it. Instead, he touched his finger to her cheek and tucked the errant curl behind her ear. "You know, of all the things about you, I think I like your heart the best."

* * *

><p>They strolled back in the direction of the hotel, stopping once in awhile to watch the crews unloading cargo off ships branded with the names of other port cities- Rotterdam, Le Harve, those on America's eastern seaboard- as well as the occasional far-off locale. Sybil did most of the talking, as Tom had never traveled farther than England. Now, she took hold of his arm, pointing excitedly at a massive freighter. "Look! Shanghai."<p>

"Tea in China someday?" he proposed gamely.

"I would love to," she answered with a grin, before telling him, "I had a great-great-uncle who lived in Hong Kong. He went mad, quit the family and became a pirate. He stole a junk, sailed it into a monsoon and capsized."

"That's quite a story."

"Here's another: one of my great-aunts lived in India. She loaded guns at Lucknow." He groaned. "What?"

"I'm just realizing your family's probably been on wrong side of _every_ conflict."

"That's probably true," she conceded.

"Where else have you traveled?"

"Paris, of course."

"_Of course_," he mocked.

"Sorry. Paris. Vienna before the war, though I wouldn't say I _saw_ it- all we did was move from parlor to parlor, it was terribly boring. I've been to the Mediterranean a few times. The water is so blue, it's like nothing you've ever seen. And America, obviously, with my mother- Boston, New York."

"What were they like?"

"New York was _hot_," she replied. "We were there in the summer and the streets were like burning coals. And so crowded- I had never seen so many people!"

"More than London?"

"It's much denser than London. But it was very exciting. Boston was like London- it looks like London- but the seashore is magnificent!"

She spoke of it now, regaling him with details about the beauty of Newport, the dunes of Cape Cod, how cold the water is in Bar Harbor. He had never heard of some of the places she mentioned, let alone _been_ to them. He found himself wondering how many years he would have to work before he could afford to spend three or four months_ not_ working, taking his wife on a summer holiday in Bar wherever... He believed what he had said- "_if she wanted that life, she would not be marrying me_"- but still, it seemed the chasm between their life experiences would be always around the corner, a shadow to remind him of what he could not be and could not do for her.

He realized then she had stopped talking, eyes trained on his face, having sensed that doubt had sneaked up on their conversation. "America would be easy to travel to. I have family there." Then she added, with judicious empathy, "It's not like it is here."

"I won't be poor there?" That's what he _thought_ to reply, but he refrained; don't say a tiger can't change his stripes. No, even he could recognize that they weren't yet in Ireland, so it was too early to argue about hypothetical holidays abroad. He simply played along and asked, "Have you ever been to Washington? To see the White House?"

She shook her head and smiled. "We'll have to go then," she resolved as she instinctively reached for his hand, fingers lacing with his, "and see it together."

* * *

><p>The streetlights were starting to come on and they agreed it was time to go back to the hotel, however much he did not want it to end. It had been nothing <em>special <em>per se- dinner and a walk in a nondescript place- but it filled him with a feeling he couldn't quite identify, although if he had to put a word to it, it would be faith. Faith in the future, in the world; faith that no matter how cruel, disappointing, and cheap this human folly called life could be, it was worth living for the grace that love could shine on an ordinary night like this.

God, he hoped she felt the same. On the train, he had asked her how the last day at home had gone- _did_ _we really start the day in Yorkshire? _he wondered now, unable to believe it- but she had given the same laconic response she had on the drive to York all those years ago: "_Fine_." Maybe he should have probed; perhaps she felt she couldn't talk to him today, when he was so obviously basking in the present, en route back to his home.

They were about to cross the street to the hotel when he suddenly took her hand. "Sybil- wait," he implored.

Lovely, inquisitive eyes turned to his, but as ever her thoughts, whatever they were, were opaque in them. "What is it?"

"Sometimes it's hard to know what you're thinking or feeling," he began, to which she merely blinked. He hurried on. "And that's alright, you don't have to tell me. But I just wanted to say, about today-"

He paused to prevent being drowned out by a lorry loudly driving by. Why had he decided to do this on the side of a busy road? One look at her face showed she clearly did not know. _Ah, well- it's done now_. He clutched her hand as a pair of passing headlamps washed over them . "I just wanted to say that I know today must have been hard for you. And I know nothing I say will make it easier or make it hurt less than it does right now." That hit her; she lowered her eyes and he lowered his voice- well, as much as he could with the ambient traffic.

"But what I _hope_ is that someday in the future, you can look back on this day and say as hard as it was, as much as it hurt, the best was yet to come." Her head was still bowed, but he saw her mouth curve as her eyes fluttered upward. "I'll do everything I can to make it so," he vowed. "I swear that I will."

"_Tom_," she interrupted him, sounding almost exasperated. "Stop. Just _stop._" She pulled her hand from his to press her fingers to his lips. "I believed you the first time." She smiled fully now and found his hand once more. "Come on, let's go inside."

* * *

><p>She had been thinking, though she had not revealed what. <em>Yet. <em>She was thinking still as they crossed the lobby without any notice, as they ascended the stairs to their room, his hand finding the small of her back when they turned the corners, as he unlocked the door to their room.

This time, they did not hesitate to enter; their conversation was not silenced when confronted with such a charged space. He took their coats and she teased his windblown hair with her fingers. The window was open, coloring the room with the light of an almost-sunken sun, salt air and the sound of a street musician's violin streaming in, mixing with their laughter.

It had been six months since the trip to Scotland. How much she'd grown. How much they had grown together.

"Mind if I wash up?" she asked. Of course he didn't. She removed some toiletries and night clothes wrapped in tissue paper from her suitcase. Tom was sitting at the writing desk with his notebook. He did not look up when she said she would not be long. _He has no idea, _she thought, feeling exhilarated and a little light-headed.

In the bathroom, she washed and brushed as she did every night; she removed the pins from her hair, releasing the same long locks she'd had all her life. Then she started unbuttoning her blouse, noticing in the mirror that her breathing was a bit more shallow than usual.

He had not noticed that the tissue paper was not plain white for packing, but white with the insignia of the finest boutique in Paris. In it was a nightgown, the color of the sky in winter, made of silk cut with lace that made her look now as if she were swathed in snowflakes that would melt on the heat of her skin. It was far more stunning in the mirror than it had been in the black-and-white ad in Mary's bridal magazine, more stunning than when she had opened the box behind the locked door of her childhood bedroom. _Stunning, if unrecognizable_, the reflection staring back at her. _Mary could wear this_, she decided, because Mary could deliver on what it promised. _But me?_

As if confirming her incompetence, she realized she had forgotten her hairbrush and had to resort to untangling her hair with her fingers. _An auspicious start_, she rued grimly. Nonetheless, she was undeterred and so proceeded to do something she had never done: she put on perfume _before_ bed. Taking a deep breath, full of excitement and anticipation, she went back out into the room, where Tom was still at the desk. "I'm ready," she announced. He nodded without looking up, perhaps even mildly annoyed that she was demanding his attention mid-thought. She thought he would forgive her.

"I'm just about done, love- two minutes." Ordinarily, she would have asked what he was working on, but tonight she did not. Perhaps that's what made him glance up- and oh, the expression on his face when he did. She had been unprepared for the proposal in York, but she was ready for this and she knew she would never, ever forget the way he was looking at her right now.

His mind was in no condition to form sentences, as he slowly deduced what was happening right now in their room, with her in that... well, _clothing_ seemed too generous and it certainly wasn't sleepwear. Whatever it was, it was for him- an invitation, if not a directive, as she stood, unwavering, beside the bed.

_I don't suppose... _

Still, he did not want to be too presumptuous. "I confess," he started, rising from the desk and coming over, "I'll have to sleep in the chair with you looking like that."

"I don't want you to sleep in the chair," she smiled. "I want you to sleep in the bed, with me." His head tipped incredulously, as if unsure whether she was proposing one final, excruciating _look-don't-touch_ climax or if they were actually on the cusp of what came next. _I don't want you to doubt me_. "And not just sleep," she confirmed.

He could see she was waiting for him- to touch her, to kiss her, the only reasonable response to what she was offering. It took all his willpower to instead say, "You said we should wait until we're married and I want to respect that."

"I said we should wait until everything is settled." She stared at him directly now, not coy or flirtatious; it was important that he understand. "It's been settled to my satisfaction."

He did understand. Still, he felt obligated to do due diligence. "What if something were to happen?"

She had thought of it too, on the train, and decided tonight could be left to chance- chance, which had treated them well, had seen them through a war and now to here. "We'll be married in a month," she answered with a slight shrug. "We'd be married before we even found out." _Our children._ His head was cocked, still considering, and so it was she who reached out first, her hand falling lightly on the buttons on his vest. "Next question, barrister."

When he met her eyes, she knew she had her answer. "No questions. You can make up your own mind." His voice was husky and that, along with his eyes and the momentum in the room which seemed to be moving faster than the train this afternoon was such that, when he finally did touch her- barely, just tracing one of the straps with his thumb- she almost fell back from the sensation. "Where did you get this?"

"Paris." Her chest was now rising and falling rapidly. And of course, he could see it all.

_Paris. She ordered it from Paris, _for at least half his year's salary, _to wear for when we_...

"I had it sent to our dressmaker." _Stop talking, Sybil_. _Who cares how you got it? __Look at how he's looking at you._

_And her skin.._ It was immaculate, _there's not a mark on her_,_ not even freckles from the sun_...

"I said it was a wedding gift." _Shut up, Sybil. _But she couldn't help herself, not even when his hand came to cradle her face, quite obviously speaking to her without words. "For Mary, I mean."

_And just- her. Everything_. In his whole life, he would never really understand how he had come to be loved by someone so fine. "It's incredible," he said, not at all about her attire.

"I can't think of a better way to have spent my father's allowance, can you?"

That broke the spell. "Are you serious?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"How else would I have paid for it?" she answered equally so.

And then he laughed, bright and buoyant, and she joined in. "You're something," he told her, as they came together in one of those familiar, conspiratorial kisses, as if they were back in the garage or the cottage and not in this new space, her arms twining around him, wanting to be closer, _always_ closer, and she remembered that she _could_ deliver because she was all that he wanted, just as he was for her.

They broke for breath, his hands still playing in her hair. "Can I ask though- why tonight?"

"I didn't plan it. I bought this for the wedding night. But on the train, I was thinking... " She had not thought about how to express it. "We'll have a wedding, go before God and promise everything to each other. And I'll say it and I'll mean it, but today I _did_ it." She flushed with pride. "It rather makes me feel that I can do anything." She said it as if the words themselves held the power and he felt perfect communion with her in this moment, for he so understood that, that feeling, how true it could be... _I won't always be a chauffeur._

From there, to _here_.

"Give me a minute?" he requested, ignoring the dismayed impatience that crossed her face. "You caught me a bit by surprise," he teased. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and went into the bathroom, leaving her to sit on the bed.

She wanted to be calm- as Mary would say, _c'est pas grave_- to project the omniscience of this ridiculous garment, to suppress the thoughts rising in her mind: _what will it be like, will I know what to do, I hope I don't disappoint. _And finally: _This is what you gave up everything for, this is your prize. Relish it._

He emerged from the bathroom- to her shock, all skin but for a bundle of artfully-situated discarded clothes, which he proceeded to drop in the corner. She was relieved to see he was not totally naked- mostly because she could allow herself to look. She had seen him before in the cottage, the night they came back- but this was different, to be in the light with him watching her think thoughts she had previously only dared entertain in private.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable if we were more equitably dressed," he quipped, kissing her on the cheek and taking a seat opposite her on the bed. His easy confidence and overall humanness in this delicate moment made her heart swell- _thank God it's him_. "I have something for you." He opened his palm to reveal a simple, gold band with a jade stone in the center. "I was going to do this on the boat, but it just seems the time now."

"Oh, Tom," she said, lifting it. "It's so beautiful."

"Green for Ireland." He rolled his eyes a little at how cliched that sounded actually said out loud. "But it's to remember this trip by. I know what you gave up to make it. I won't ever forget."

"Would you put it on?" He nodded, but she held up her hand. "But first, I have two conditions."

"Alright." Her eyes had always reminded him of weather, how quickly it could turn; he wasn't sure what to expect now.

"One, no more talk of what I '_gave up_.' It ends with this," she resolved. "From where I'm sitting, I have more than any woman I know." It was true- Mary, Edith, her mother, even Isobel; the silly friends she used to know who would spend this night preening in Parisian couture before a veritable stranger. And on that topic- "Two, you help me take this off. It's a little ridiculous."

"You _do not_ look ridiculous." _Far from it_. "But if you like-"

"I would." He rose and extended his hand.

_Branson, you'll be taking Lady Sybil to Ripon... _

She followed, placing one knee on the bed. He gathered the bottom of the nightgown and lifted it over head, tossing it on the chair. Her hands clutching his shoulders, they watched as it promptly slid down the chair, forming a silver pool on the floor. "Sorry," he muttered sheepishly. "I'll go hang it up."

She did not release him. "I don't care. I only wore for it for you."

"Well, you put it to shame." He brushed back her hair and kissed her, this time replete with all the thrills of new skin- his arms, her back, her hip with his. "Give me your hand." She did and he slid the ring on. "There. Perfect."

_... when we are in a place of our own and we have all the time in the world..._

In time, her head found the pillow, watching as he pulled the bedspread back to the foot of the bed. Her eyes went to the window as he undressed, revealing a brilliant, red-streaked lavender sky. "It's not even quite dark yet," she remarked, surprised. She had no idea how much time had elapsed since they'd arrived- in the room, in Liverpool, at the train station in Downton. It could have been an hour, a day, a lifetime; she would have believed any of it.

He joined her under the sheet, feeling a perceptible rigidity now in her embrace. He waited a minute to see if it would pass, before he quietly said, "It's really nothing to be nervous about."

"I'm not," she told him honestly, then amended, "I'm not scared. I just don't know quite what to expect."

"It's just kissing," he assured her.

"Just kissing?"

"Yes," he affirmed and then again a short time thereafter, his breath hot on her stomach, green and gold threading through his hair, "As I said- it's just kissing."

And so it went until she called him back. "Tom?"

_Fetch me the matches..._

Eyes locked, her adorned hand came to his face. "Hold me closer." He gathered her in his arms, so close that her lips brushed against his when she said, "_Closer_."

"Are you ready?" he asked, to be sure. "You are, but do you _want_-"

She nodded. "Yes."

The rest was detail.


	44. Chapter 44: Tomorrow

_Thank you so much for the reviews! I know people have strong feelings about what's canon on this particular issue, so I hope it didn't ruin the story for you. _

_Special thanks to Chickwriter for once again lending me her superior writer's brain to solve a problem._

__N__ext up, meeting Mrs. Branson. _ _

_Also, s3! she cut her hair! how wonderful!_

* * *

><p>A while later, the night sky now black, Sybil Crawley fell to sleep...<p>

A hundred days from tonight, the summer of 1919 would be waning and Sybil Branson would turn twenty-two. There would be a birthday party at her favorite pub in Dublin St. Patrick's attended by her best friend at the hospital and her husband, the political couple who ran the local bookstore, the arts editor at the newspaper and his wife (also newlyweds), a roguish freelance war photographer, her brother-in-law and his girl-of-the-hour. And of course her husband, who would, when she leaned over, laughing, to blow out the candle on the cake, would recall the rain-soaked afternoon, the chapel, his nerves, her face illuminated by the flame she joined with his on the altar, and he would finally exhale.

They would arrive back at their flat but, too hot to sleep and armed with a bottle of birthday champagne (a gift from her sisters), Tom would propose following through on their oft-spoke of plan to break onto the roof of their building. Tipsy, in house dress with no stockings, Sybil would scale the fire ladder, insisting "_I am an excellent climber_" as her husband followed, urging her to be careful while sliding his hands up her calves- for support, of course.

Reaching the roof, suspended mid-air the whole of Dublin at their feet, Sybil would look up, see the North star and turn her eyes east- to England and another lifetime, one she sometimes couldn't believe she had lived. Tom would sit on the blacktop and take Sybil on his lap, her skirt gathered up around her, the bottle, two glasses, and their elbows on the low brick wall protecting them. Tom- and now, Sybil too- would search for landmarks whilst weaving fantastic stories for the lit windows and dusky pedestrians on the street, and wonder aloud if anyone else in the world was living so well as them tonight. Tom would point past the city- "_Look, love, the sea and there's the port. Can you believe it's been four months since you saw it first_?"- and Sybil would confess that what she really remembers about the day they arrived is how distressed she was that it might be as much as a month before they could be close again, the way they had been in Liverpool. Tom would remind her teasingly, his arms tightening around her, that had not been a problem. She would smile smugly, settling back against him as his breath tickled her ear, "_Remember when we took that walk up to Howth...?_"

"_Mmm-I do_," she would reply, then ease herself around and press her mouth to his. They had traded novelty for mastery by now and with perfect economy of movement, artful and precise, they would find that closeness again. The city as their bed, they would make real the scene Tom used to think about in the cottage sometimes, when he allowed himself to, of her hair spilling over his face, his face buried in her skin- together at last and equal in everything: need, dreams, desire, love. When the first few droplets of rain would start to fall, Sybil would warn, "_If you stop now, I'll kill you_" followed by "_It is my birthday after all_" and less because of that and more because of the way the wet dress was clinging to her he would not stop, and she would get the birthday wish she had whispered to him in bed that morning.

Back in their flat, having left an incriminating trail of puddled water in the stairwell, they would toss their soaked clothes in the bathroom and laze on the sofa with damp hair and what was left of the champagne. Sybil would light the cigarette she had fished out of her pocketbook- "_Don't make that face,_" she'd say about her smoking in the house, "_It's a present from your brother and I can have it here by the window if I like- just this once, on my birthday_." He would raise a skeptical eyebrow, but wouldn't argue as it was her birthday, but would just watch her sitting at the window, remarking on the world outside, seeming so comfortable, so at home- here, with him, with _herself- _a spirit finally free.

She would startle him by reflecting out loud, "I wouldn't trade that night for anything." Liverpool, she'd answer when he asked what she'd meant.

"Liar," he would tease. "Not even for just now?"

She would shake her head. "No. There will be a thousand and one nights in life for pleasure. But that was special- it was so pure and unselfish. That night," she would say in a faraway voice, "was love."

... for now though, this last moonless night in England passed peacefully as Sybil slept, unaware all that was written in the stars.

* * *

><p>The blinding white light of a new day was a harsh wake-up call; her first thought on this momentous morning was: <em>We didn't think to close the curtains- that was stupid.<em>

But she couldn't turn her back to it without waking him; her head was nestled in the crook of his arm, his other arm slung low over her waist. He was fast asleep. She wondered what time it was. _Probably very early_. The ferry wasn't until eleven-thirty. Today, she would arrive in Ireland, her new home. _Will I like it_? she wondered. _And living with his mother- what will _that_be like_? She would wake up in Mrs. Branson's house tomorrow. And then, the race would_really_ start- find a job, find a flat, furnish the flat, figure out the wedding- and with Tom starting work next week, the bulk of those tasks would fall to her. That was alright though. She liked being busy, being able to make decisions- what a marked change.

_And speaking of change..._

How very new this morning was... to wake up in a hotel bed, the two of them and a sheet and nothing else tangled up together. No one knocking at the door, pushing into the room. No more "_Papa is waiting and you know how cross he is when we're late._" No more vacant hours- days- years ahead. She was her own woman now.

And yes, she was a woman now.

Lovemaking had been... strange. And awkward, even terribly awkward, not knowing quite how to move or where all the limbs went. But wonderful. Wondrous even, at times. She wasn't sure what she had expected- but, well, honestly, she hadn't expected to have to... participate?... so much. She supposed she had assumed sex was something men did- women were there for admiring and kissing, but the brunt of it was by men, for men. That turned out to be very much_not_ the case- at least not for her, with him.

She thought she was rather bad at it.

For starters, the noise. _Who knew beds could be so loud_? Not her. She expected it to be mostly silent- like church or thievery, some mixture of solemnity and secrecy, a desire not to be found out. But at that first _squeeeak, _she had started so sharply she feared _he_ might have a heart attack.

"What was that?" she asked alarmed, gripping his biceps. "That _sound_."

He nearly collapsed with relief. "It's just what it sounds like."

"But-" She struggled for the words. "But it's so _loud._ The room beneath ours... and on the other side of the wall..." He did not seem to understand. "People will_ know_."

"It's a hotel," was his reply. "No one will care." Seeing she was unconvinced, he got up and pulled the bed a few inches from the wall. "Better?"

_"_Um..._" _

He returned to her, arms flanking her head on the pillow, and smiled. "But we're married, so far as they know. And young- newlyweds, obviously. And _beautiful_." He traced the curve of her mouth with his thumb. "So very beautiful..." His lips hovering over hers, she felt herself caring less now. _Was there anyone else, anywhere in existence_? "Nevermind this hotel- who in the whole world wouldn't trade places with us tonight?"

She did not notice it again.

For the one part she had expected, she had turned to her nurse's training. "_A calm and can-do manner_"_ is how we approach these things, _she told herself. She had treated men who had undergone improvisational amputations on the battlefield with no more than the available whiskey for anesthesia. She would not be a tearful, fearful mess about a moment that, in the spectrum of tolerable human pain, fell somewhere around a scraped knee. And it was truly a _moment_, over before she'd realized it; she had survived- and with aplomb, if she might say so herself- and so spent her inaugural moments of lovemaking thinking not of amour, but that there was likely no situation in life that could not be superlatively handled by a war nurse because, well,_ nothing can faze us._

Tom, however, had pleaded with her at the outset, "_Don't go quiet on me. Tell me if something doesn't feel right or if you want to stop" _and was anxious to know before proceeding, "Are you alright?"

"Terrific," she'd answered. And feeling liberated from the purgatory of choice- _there's no going back now_, after all- added an enthusiastic, "Let's get to it!"

He had been utterly taken by that. Pants-through-the-window taken. Nice to know she still had it, especially as old-world wisdom would say she'd just given away _everything_- damaged goods and all. But it turned out that_everything_ was nothing more than ignorance: "_You lost your ignorance, no more_," he would gravely correct her later when she made a crack about her virtue. "_And what kind of people hold fast and dear to ignorance? Not _our_ lot_." And she would think, quite seriously, that if she loved him any more she would burst.

She had expected "_let's get to it_" to be the end of the conversation, that they would retreat into their own minds, their own experiences- a _see you at intermission _sort of thing- but oh no, there was a dialogue (punctuated at various points with sighs and sounds): _how does that feel, do you like..._? Along with gentle pointers, as she had requested: _try to _this_, try to_ that, including the all-important "_try to move with me, it will feel so much better,_" which was a revelation, as it was so, _so_ true. He was attentive and so patient, even when it was hard for her (significantly harder than she would have thought) to find the rhythm and keep the rhythm, or when he pulled back, intuiting correctly that her arm was starting to lose circulation and moved it, swiftly and gracefully, into a more sustainable position.

And of course, the big moment of which she had some cognizance- she was a nurse, for God's sake, she knew where babies came from (well, in truth, she had reverse-engineered that knowledge, combining the literature about prevention of syphilis- and babies- with some of the more indelicate occurrences on the night shift). But she had really no expectation of what it would be like, feel like, up close. She almost missed it because he had asked, "Look at me" and _Oh God_, she had. There was no rational or anatomical reason why that stare should have held so much power, but it did; all that wanting- wishing- pleading- longing- waiting- lusting- _love_ of these years distilled down to one minute, one look, one alchemic act. She understood now- not consciously, of course, but inside, a primordial awakening perhaps- how the world and time were all tied together; that two people, born an ocean apart, were now sharing the same infinitesimal space in this very vast universe and that everything that has ever been and will ever be started _here_.

She _needed_ him to wake up.

* * *

><p>At some point, he stirred- perhaps responding to the impatience beside him- and his hand passed over his face. It had been a dead sleep and it took him a few seconds to remember where he was- <em>the hotel, Liverpool<em>- and who was with him- _Sybil_, all bright-eyes and bare shoulders looking over at him now.

"Good morning," she greeted.

"Good morning to you," he returned, voice roughened from the slumber still pulling at him. _The ferry, Ireland_. "What time is it?" He reached for his watch and answered his own question. "Eight-thirty." _Jesus_. "I can't believe I slept so late." _Well, first time in five years_- nah, he could believe it.

"I don't remember falling asleep," she told him.

"Me either. It's an odd thing, but it's just how it is." She smiled and said nothing. He recognized that she was following his lead- what to do, what to say- and he was doing an incredibly poor job out front. He rubbed his eyes, before propping himself up part-way on the pillow. "Come here." She came gratefully, snuggling herself in his embrace. Kissing the top of her hair, he caught the scent of honeysuckle- _right, last night- _remembering that he'd had the same experience falling asleep, how that constant had been strangely comforting, as if he'd been meant to notice it. Maybe they would have to revisit their conversation about fate. Not now, though. "How do you feel?"

"Happy," she answered without thinking.

He laughed a little. "Me too." He was, seeing how content she was to just rest her cheek against his chest, his fingers threading through her hair. "Are you sore at all?"

"No, not really," she said, then admitted, "a little."

"I'm sorry-"

"No, don't be. It's no worse than a headache. A very mild one," she assured him.

"Can I help- find a druggist or something? I don't know what you would take for that, but I know a nurse to ask," he said with a wink.

She shook her head. "No, no. That's quite unnecessary. Though there is one thing I was thinking..." she trailed off as her hand trailed toward the sheet. "Do you think we could try it again?"

* * *

><p>She was not one for pillow talk, evidently, as the first words she said to him afterward were, "I should have a bath."<p>

"Go ahead," he replied, leaning back, now awake enough to revel in just how excellent this morning was, aside from the sunshine and clear-blue sky. "We should probably aim to leave by ten."

"Glorious day out," she remarked, looking towards the window, but making no move to get up. "Good for sea travel."

"Yep." She was sitting up now, the sheet cloaked under her arms, seeming to be sizing up the room. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Don't you want to take a bath?"

"Yes..." she affirmed slowly.

_Ah_. "There's no one else here," he reminded her. She gave him a look. He gave one back. "Really? Modesty _now_?"

"Do _you_ tromp around without any robe on?"

"You'll find out, I guess." Her mouth fell open. "Go on now, or we're going to miss the boat!" She slipped out of her side of the bed, sweeping last night's discarded nightgown off the floor and holding it in front of her, one eyebrow instructively arched. "You've very clever, but that has to be the silliest thing you've ever done."

Approaching the bathroom door, she tossed it at his face. "So," she said, "do you want to join me or not?"

* * *

><p>It was in the warm water, as he sat behind her, his fingers playing about the nape of her neck, that Sybil realized her unhappy marriage with her old life- that one had made her so afraid of the future, the one that had made joy so increasingly remote- was over; she was free, but she was not alone.<p>

Tom- a reader, a writer, a student of history- was realizing and appreciating the symmetry of this place in his life. The last time he had been with someone had been the night before arriving in Liverpool, en route to England; now in Liverpool en route to Ireland, he found himself here with her. So much had changed over these five years, not the least of which was himself; it may as well have been a different person, a different life.

Her voice called him back to the present and he caught the end of her comment, regarding last night or this morning or both. "You seemed to know the right things to do."

He considered whether he should divulge the whole truth and because she seemed more curious than expeditious, he did. "I had a girlfriend in Ireland." He waited to see how she would react- if she cared, she didn't show it. "It's different than having a random encounter or two," he explained.

"What happened?"

He smiled, his chin on her hair. "I went to England." His left hand found hers, stroking the ring she was wearing to impress the point.

"So you weren't in love with her?"

"No," he told her truthfully. "Though I liked her very much."

"What was her name?"

"Kathleen. Katy. She lived down the street. I knew her always, but when we turned sixteen- you know, you start to see people differently. We had a lot in common, our personalities and such, but it was childish, apart from the- the _feelings_ were childish. Which was fine then, as we weren't much older than children."

"Was she in love with you?"

"If she was, she would never have admitted it."

She looked back at him and smiled. "She wasn't like you then." But her expression turned as her thoughts turned inward, her eyes moving to the wall. "I don't know that I could have done this with anyone else," she said quietly. "If I didn't know you as I do, if you didn't know me..."

Of course, she could have _done_ it- _one is capable of anything, maybe even more than one imagines,_ she thought to herself, her mind immediately turning to Mary and Richard. And Edith, who would marry anyone who took her for a drive, who had fallen for Patrick, Matthew, Sir Anthony, probably countless others that Sybil didn't know about. She was lonely, Sybil knew that, but she didn't know. _To _give_ one's self in that way- to touch and be touched like that- to laugh and speak and show yourself, to look at someone and be with them, wholly, in that moment. _If she sent a letter to her sisters now, it would have contained but two words: _Choose wisely_.

She settled back against him and sighed, closing her eyes until she felt his hands start moving down her arms and his mouth lazily around her throat. "I loved being with you like that," he confessed. "Like this."

She turned to him, accepting the steam-slicked kiss he offered. "Me too." _  
><em>

* * *

><p>Laughing, he deposited her on the bed with a muffled shriek. "It's very becoming on you," he observed about the bath towel she was wrapped in. "But now, it's very late and we really do have to get dressed."<p>

"How can I get dressed if you're on top of me?" she asked out of breath.

"That's a fair point," he considered, reaching to kiss her. She kept him there until he finally wrenched himself back. "I am going to the other side of the room. Otherwise, we will never make the ferry." She responded to that with a coquettish grin.

"Do you know," she voiced to the ceiling, "I'm not sure what I expected, but I definitely didn't think it would be this _fun_."

* * *

><p>Hats on, suitcases in hand, Sybil turned back and gave one last wistful gaze around the room with its worn furniture and faded wallpaper. "Who knew this was the most romantic hotel room in England?" She looked up at Tom and smiled.<p>

"If your father knew, he'd have the dogs on me."

"He doesn't know." She shook her head, touching her free hand lightly his chest. "Not at all."

"Come, let's go," he said as he opened the door.

After they had checked out, in a quiet moment out of the earshot of others, she remarked, "I know we lied yesterday, telling people we were married. But it doesn't really feel untrue today, does it?"

"No," he agreed. It really didn't.


	45. Chapter 45: Ireland 1919

Very important A/N: from here on out,** Lost Time will include** **some Series 3 spoilers **because I think the Ireland story can best be told in the context of coming back and trying to reconcile their new life with their old ones.

Mostly 3x01. Mostly themes and character attitudes towards the Bransons, as well as some glancing references to actual scenes. I don't think it's that spoiler-y, but I'm not the best judge. And I promise I will never, ever ruin a big surprise on the show (like baby Branson).

As always, thank you so, so much as ever for the reviews.

* * *

><p><em>Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.<em>

_For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;_

_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come_

**Yorkshire, 1920**

The words from their wedding could have been written about today- spring in all its glory is on display below the second floor, full trees and verdant fields dotted with wildflowers as far as he can see. He'll never forget them; they will live in his mind forever- the rough brogue of the priest, the rapt smiles traded through her veil. It's still the greatest day of his life, despite the relentless rain, the empty pews, the modest reception; all the greater for its improbability-_ impossibility_- which he feels even now as he watches her, the breeze catching her cotton shift as she stands, folding her day clothes at the edge of the bed, the bed of green and white. He takes a last inhale of sweet air and moves to latch the window.

"Leave it open, would you?" _But we always close them at home._"The sun is wonderful."

_Ah- but at home it always rains_. "I will," he says. "And it is."

"It's almost summer," she remarks, then pauses, mid-crease, realizing what that means. _By summer, everything will have changed. _She sets the clothes on the chair, her palm finding the baby as she gets into bed. He jumps to help her.

Settling against the pillows, one hand in her husband's, the other on their child, she is at peace. This- for her, for now- is perfect. It's not for him and she knows it. They inhabit a big world- one churning with ideals and revolution, an infant country being baptized by fire- and she loves it, thrives in it, but she needs her world to be smaller now. _For now. For now_. She reaches for his other hand, puts it beneath hers on her stomach- a circle, unbroken.

He searches for a moment. "The baby's quiet today."

"Baby was up all night- maybe he's finally worn himself out," she laughs with a yawn. "He's certainly worn me out."

He smiles. It's still surprises him how, to her, the baby is already a person- with a personality, with preferences and irritating habits like boxing her insides all night or sending dinner back up or deciding to throw a tantrum not two minutes after the ferry leaves port. To him, the baby- _our_ _baby_- is still an abstraction, a dull _thump _against his hand. "I'll let you get some sleep then."

"What will you do?" She still frets about him being left alone here.

"Read. Go for a walk." He smiles. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"You should take a walk. It's so beautiful out."

_Here_ she means- that's what he thinks, but he just keeps smiling. "I will. Sleep well, love." He lifts her hand and kisses it; the thrill- his lips to her- hasn't abated, not even a little. It occurs to him there are many, many people who tire of what they want once they have it. He is not one of them- _no, n__ever_.

She closes her eyes and he lingers for a moment, two, as an old sentiment scratches at him. _Homesickness_, he thinks, but no, it's not that specific. _Longing_ is what this is. It hurts, a little, to look at her, like it used to. He hasn't felt it in a long time, not since they left this place for good a year ago. But here they are- upstairs, married, a baby on the way- and it _hurts_ again. It occurs to him it's not the love, it's the doubt, the uncertainty, that's bearing down too hard on his heart right now.

He kisses her head and leaves.

The big, grand house is cool as ever, in both temperature and disposition. It's still strange to descend its imposing staircase, wander its halls, be able to come and go into any room he pleases or ring the bell and be served (not that he ever _would_ of course). It makes him all the more anxious to escape and the wide blue sky is a relief.

_A year ago, we left this place_- maybe not forever, but certainly for more than less than a year.

_Yet here we are_.

They were so determined, so sure of the the kind of life they would have, the future they would make- chin up to everyone, her father, his mother, the people who talked and said 'Oh, it's just impulse, the impetuousness of youth' and all that ferocious lust for life will fade like color bleached by the sun. _Not us_, they'd said.

And yet, here they are.

_We failed_, he thinks. There's no other way to cut it.

* * *

><p><strong>May 1919<strong>

_A glorious day_, _good for sea travel_ indeed.

"Don't get used to it!" He nearly shouted to be heard over the din on the crowded deck and the rhythmic crash of waves against the boat. "The weather is never this nice in Ireland!"

She looked over at him from the railing of the bow and grinned and even then, he _knew_: that was the picture that would be immortalized in his mind. Salt spray on her skin, wind battering her cheeks, barreling towards Ireland- and her future, _their_ future- as confident in her course as the ferry slicing and cutting through the water. When he was old and gray and regaling reluctant grandchildren about the old days, she would be in his mind exactly as she was now and, he was pretty sure, that in his heart, he would feel exactly as he did now.

He pulled her closer, so she was in front of him, his arm encircling her waist. "Though who knows?" He spoke into her ear, not caring who saw. They had done so all day, sitting too close in the taxi, standing too close in the ferry queue, touching too much and trading too many disrobed stares for an unmarried couple; anyone with eyes could see they were a little too acquainted with each other. "Maybe the sun followed you. I certainly couldn't blame it if it did."

She turned, just barely, and brushed her lips against his. They were at the front of the ferry, no one to scandalize but the waves. But a prim, older woman wearing too much perfume had been shooting them disapproving glares all afternoon was suddenly overcome with a coincidental coughing fit. Sybil whipped around with a glare of her own (reminding him that she was reared in the gladiatorial arena of an aristocratic house). "Must have choked on her cologne," Sybil grumbled, though she nonetheless eased herself back to his side. But the censure was quickly forgotten when Sybil pointed outward and said excitedly, "Tom, look- I think I see land!"

He squinted and then he saw it too. "I think so."

"Is it Howth? The first thing I'll see?"

"Tis. There's the lighthouse," he showed her. "And Dublin's just south."

He had not expected it would fill him with such emotion to see Ireland again, his homeland, and to see it with Sybil. He put his hands on her shoulders and she looked up, saw his eyes were cloudy, the past and present colliding in them. "Oh, Tom." She reached for his cheek. "Welcome home."

He nodded, swallowed, and smiled. "You too."

"Yes," she said, leaning back into him. "Me too."

* * *

><p>The ferry docked around four o'clock and they disembarked into the melee of a capital city at rush hour: crowded, bustling, and loud, with car horns and tram bells and vendors shouting out sales. He held her hand tightly as they wove through the march of pedestrians on the sidewalk and hired a car to take them to his mother's house.<p>

"Where to?" the red-faced driver asked and Sybil was admittedly startled to hear him speak like Tom- with the same lilt and musical cadence, the same glib loquaciousness. They proceeded to chat like old mates after Tom gave him the address- about what had changed and what hadn't, Gaelic football and local politics. _He's at home here_, she thought. She was embarrassed to admit it, but between the driver's thick accent and their liberal invocation of Irish and working class slang, she could barely understand what they're saying. The thought of interjecting her own foreign voice into the banter made her feel shy and so, despite her general friendliness, she kept quiet, staring out the window at her new country.

"I know a shortcut that'll get you up to the north side right quick," the driver said. The car jerked around a corner, away from the elegant streets of the city center and revealed another reality- abject poverty. Swollen tenements, filthy children, and the _smell_- "Slaughterhouses," Tom explained, almost inaudibly and ashamed, he can't believe the driver's taken them this way, on her _first day_ in Dublin.

She didn't respond, just continued to look, wide-eyed, at the streets filled with trash and indigent men with mean eyes. She sucked in her breath as she watched a child chase a football through a puddle that was clearly sewage- _cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, tetnus_- the nurse in her was fighting the urge to jump out of the car and scrub the boy down with lye. _My God- this place is some version of hell_.

Tom caught Sybil's stricken expression and reached for her hand. "It's not here," he assured her quietly. "Not anywhere near here."

"Not from around here, are you?" Tom responded with a look that could kill, while Sybil just shook her head. "Sorry about the stench- I should have warned you," the driver winced. "Won't be but a minute and we'll be out of it."

Shortly, the streets became a bit wider, some trees and scraggly grass started to appear around the houses, which were stout and utilitarian, but fairly kept up. It wasn't nice, but it wasn't _that. _The car pulled up in front of a long line of two-story brick row houses; Tom nodded toward one of them. "That's it there." They paid and stepped out onto the curb. "I'm sorry about that," Tom apologized. "He said 'shortcut'- I didn't think he would take us through Phibsboro. I should have asked."

"No- it's good," she replied slowly. "I admit, I've never seen anything like it, but it exists and I should see it, I _want_ to see it. Don't feel bad for me. _I_ am not the one to pity. God, I'm not." She took a moment to steady herself. "I wonder if there's a hospital around there."

"That's a great idea. We'll look into it tomorrow, what do you say?"

"I'd like that," she nodded, then straightened up and smiled. "So that's tomorrow," she said, taking his hand. "But now, let's go meet your mother."

* * *

><p>Mrs. Branson had heard the car and she was standing against the front door, making one final, prayerful appeal. <em>Let her be homely or, if not, the victim of some gross disfigurement, a blighted beauty, a girl whose spirit was belied by her appearance. Please, just let there be some visible, evident reason why she can't marry her own kind<em>.

But she knew that wouldn't be the case; that wasn't her son. And when she opened the door, it was confirmed.

There stood her son, six years older, and _her_- all glossy dark curls and smart clothes, expensive fabrics tailored to fit only her. She was like a life-size doll from a fancy toy shop, the kind of doll fathers like hers brought home for their daughters. And there's Tom, who had left home not exactly a boy but who now looked every bit a man, holding onto her like a child on Christmas morning.

_Jesus Christ_.

"Hiya, Mam." _Oh, that voice and after so long!_ He removed his hat and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Mam, I'd like you to meet my fiancee, Sybil."

_She_ smiled, all teeth and merriment, clasped her gloved hands together. "It's so lovely to meet you at last." Her voice was full, confident, and gratingly English.

Mrs. Branson could muster a nod, no more. "Lady Sybil."

"Just Sybil please." _It's a direction, not a request_, Mrs. Branson determined. People like Lady Sybil did not make requests of people like her. "Thank you so much for your hospitality. I'm very grateful for it- as is my mother, naturally." It was a gentle attempt at humor, at solidarity. As if her mother and I could have anything in common. Her son laughed. She did not.

"Don't even think of it," Tom jumped in. "This is your family too, now." Mrs. Branson turned before Lady Sybil could see her reaction to that.

"Don't just leave her standing here on the doorstep," she scolded her son from the hallway. "Bring her inside!" Beaming, he swept her inside, into the small hallway which ran down to the kitchen; to the right was the parlor, a dining room, and the stairs which led to the bedrooms and the bath. That was it- that was the house. Regardless, Lady Sybil lied that she had "a lovely home." _She could use some new adjectives_.

Tom took her coat, ushered her onto the sofa- _a ridiculous portrait_, an immaculate young lady poised in the middle of her musty parlor. Nonetheless, Tom was taking every pain to make sure she was comfortable, _as if a girl like her could ever belong in a place like this_. "Do you need anything- some water, the bathroom?"

"No, thank you. I'm quite alright." Her face turned upward and he couldn't help it, his fingertips found her face as she smiled secretly at him. Mrs. Branson lifted her eyes heavenward and prayed for strength- at least the strength to hold her tongue.

"You must be tired from the journey," she said, sitting down stiffly. Her son sat down opposite her, too close to Lady Sybil.

"It wasn't so bad," Tom replied. "Plenty of sun, the water was calm. And the train from Yorkshire was lovely." _Jesus, not him too._

"Yes, we rather enjoyed ourselves," Lady Sybil chimed in.

"That we did," he agreed. That made Lady Sybil giggle- an airy sound quickly stifled with a dainty hand to her lips- and then Tom was hanging his head, trying to hide his own amusement. _Young and in love, _Mrs. Branson thought bemusedly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. _A couple of fools._

"Punchy from the trip, are you?"

"I suppose so," Tom demured, cheeks still dimpled, as he took Lady Sybil's hand.

"I'll make some tea then." Mrs. Branson shot up, grateful for the escape. "Dinner will be in an hour."

Sybil nodded Tom to follow his mother into the kitchen, where he found her filling up the kettle at the sink. He came up behind her and dropped a kiss on her head. "Ah, Mam. It's nice to be home."

But the affection only reminded his mother of how_ Lady Sybil _was ruining this long-awaited reunion, to say nothing of her son's future. She pushed past Tom, setting the kettle down too hard on the stove. "She is too beautiful," she rued.

He grinned. "I know."

"What is she _doing_ here?" she cried, the words strangling in her throat. Tom seemed completely stupefied by the question. "You will never be able to care for a girl like that! And the worst part is, I'm sure she doesn't know it."

"We love each other."

"Oh, _well_ then." She tried to swallow her frustration, shaking the tea leaf too hard out of the tin. "It'll be grand then, just _grand_, won't it be!"

"Who's to say it won't be?"

She whipped around. "Are you stupid, Tommy?" she charged, one hand on her hip. "Because you weren't when you left!"

"I know what you think, Mam," he began with forced patience, although she could tell he was becoming annoyed. "But you're wrong. You'll see. Once we're settled, in our own home-"

She scoffed. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Lets see how _Lady Sybil_ does after she's been here more than an hour. There's a reason they make you wait a month." She shooed him out of the way of the cabinet and took down the cups and saucers. "I were a gambler, I'd wager on her being tucked up in her bed in England over walking down the aisle with you."

"She's not going back. Get it out of your head."

His proclamation was steely and severe; it told her not to trespass, as did his stance- arms crossed, jaw square- as she regarded him across the cramped kitchen. But advance she did, staring him directly in the eye as she did so. "And why is that?" He said nothing, which said everything. "Oh, I see," she nodded. "Well, I will add that to my already high regard for Lady Sybil."

"You don't know her," he countered.

She relieved the kettle starting to whistle. ""I know enough about her," she countered. He watched as she poured the boiling water into the pot, an errant splash scalding her finger.

"Let me carry that, Mam," he offered, moving to pick up the tea tray.

"No, leave it." She lifted it, then set it down again and spun around to face him. "You know the trouble with women who walk out on their families? They're women who walk out on their families. She did it to her own- do you really think she wouldn't do it to yours?" She thrust the tray at him. "Go and take it in to her. You'll probably have to show her how to pour it too." Disgusted, Tom took the tea and walked out; Mrs. Branson sank into a chair and started to cry.


	46. Chapter 46: Merrit Square, Dublin

_So... we have some rewriting to do, don't we? Sigh._

_This is loosely based on 3x04- the plan and the start of Sybil's night on the run (but minus the Dublin meeting stuff). __Remember, the story is non-linear now- the year in Ireland told through memory, which is impressionistic. It means the who-what-where won't always be immediately and fully clear, but I promise if you play along it will make sense in the end._

_As for the canon, LT will still end, as was always planned, before the baby's birth so you can choose your own adventure after that. _

_One last thing: what I loved about S3 was the (however brief) reappearance of sassy Tom and Sybil. Sybil who cocks an eyebrow and quips "tonight or tomorrow?" in front of Granny is clearly not only in a satisfying and sex-positive relationship, but speaks her mind freely. That's the woman I wanted the girl in the back of the car in S1 to grow up to be. And she did. And that's how I envision her at home with Tom._

___Thanks as always for the support! ___

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire 1920<strong>

Sybil shuts her eyes, but sleep doesn't come. _It's too quiet here_, she realizes. She misses city life, the never-ending noise, the human thrum, the bustle of Merrit Square: the rumble of the tram in the street below, shouts in the stairwell, the footsteps from the floor above. At home, the door is always open- she and Tom coming and going, people popping by. The neighbors know she's a nurse and willing treat, pro bono, minor cuts and colds to save a family a trip to the doctor and money they don't have to spare; since she works, they bring over casseroles and pies as payment. At home, there's no shortage of tasks nor surplus of time- the pipe's burst, the laundry's piling up, theatre tickets on Saturday, she has to work a double on Tuesday, he has to take the early train to cover a protest out-of-town, neither of them picked up bread and that means the pub for dinner- "_again_" they'd say in unison- but oh well and_ say, why don't we check the time for the new Chaplin film_, the cinema's just around the corner.

Birdsong through the windows and Anna's industrious patter up and down the hall can hardly compete with that, their lives of organized chaos and the eye of the storm, the little flat on the fifth floor. _You can take the girl out of Yorkshire. And you _can_ take the Yorkshire out of the girl..._

* * *

><p><strong>Merrit Square, <strong>**Dublin 1919**

She and Tom, at the end of an especially grueling week, have collapsed in the parlor- him on the sofa, her in the adjacent armchair. Drink in hand, he surveyed the disastrous state of their home. "Jesus, we're slobs."

"Do _you_ feel like cleaning right now?"

"I'm merely making an observation," he assured, hands raised. "A neutral, journalistic observation that I can't quite find our furniture or our floor under all this mess. What _is_ all this?"

"_This_ is what happens when we tell ourselves every night this week that we'll do it tomorrow because we have... other things to do," she reminded him with an arched eyebrow and a cavalier sweep of her hand. "This is our life, darling. A terrific, loved-up mess," she finished with flourish and the warmth of her words radiated across the room. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Nor would I," he concurred, returning her smile and neither of them doubt, not a bit, the fullness of their declarations about this life, this love and then suddenly there's _that_ _look_.

This has been the most delightful surprise- the ignition_, _as it were- it can happen anytime, anywhere, in public even, or when she least expects it, even now when she was utterly knackered. _Is it because we live in close quarters? _she has so often wondered._ Or because we're newlyweds? Or is it just... us_? She hadn't known what to expect of the marriage bed (a misnomer: not confined to marriage, definitely not confined to beds) and it had taken her so long to _feel_ it- that first time in the garage on that oppressively hot day in July, three years after she was formally introduced to men- and she still can't quite believe it quickens so fast, so furiously, so frequently in her. _Even when I am too tired to move..._

She leaned her head back, closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Roof collapse, sixty people brought in, fourteen hours on my feet," she recounted to her husband. But it only took a moment before she felt his presence, hands on either side of the chair, and her mouth was curling even before his lips landed on hers.

"My poor darling," he murmured, kissing her eyelids and around her face. "My poor, _exhausted_ darling."

"And half of them weren't even hurt!" He pushed closer, one knee on the chair, to reach around to her throat and she lolled her head to one side- _yes, please_. "I spent the whole day holding my tongue from telling the whingers"- her voice was now starting to unravel, which only spurred him on- "'The diagnosis is you're dusty and a little inconvenienced. Now go home, so we can treat the people who are actually injured.'"

"Seems a terrible waste of your tongue," he opined, husky in her ear.

She opened her eyes at the provocation, turned her face to him. "Are you not taking seriously the travails of my day?" she challenged; this is how they play. "Because I sense you are not."

"Of course I am," he answered deferentially. "Nurse Branson _hates_ incompetency, even in the patients."

"Yes! She does."

"I know," he affirmed and she let him wind her arms around his neck and lift her up, carry her the few steps to the sofa. "I only want to relieve you of your frustrations."

"How very selfless of you," she commented as he set to the line of buttons down her dress.

"Tis, isn't it?" He stopped to smile down at her, smiled wider when he saw her squirm. _He never rushes this bit_, which she both hated and loved and hated that she loved. "Something you need, love?" _So frightfully full of himself_! _And he doesn't quit either_. "Something you want?"

"_No,_" she responded, too defensive_. "_I was just noticing that you seem remarkably restored after such a hard workweek. Was it the whiskey?" she feigned. "Perhaps I should have some as well."

She moved to sit up, but he caught her in his arms. "We'll share one. _After_."

"It's all yours," he mumbled as he passed her the tumbler from the side table- his last act before he passed out.

She accepted it with dismay. "But the ice will have all melted."

"So? You only drink it watered down anyway."

She poked him with her elbow. Unlike him, she now felt restored and she did not want him to fall asleep and leave her bored for the remainder of Friday night. "Go into the kitchen and make me a fresh one. Please?" He heaved a sigh of resignation. "We'll drink whiskey and you can listen to me complain about my day- what good fun it will be for both of us!" He roused himself and, with a ruffle of her hair, went dutifully into the kitchen; she watched him from her position propped up on the sofa. _He really does tromp around with no clothes on, _she chuckled to herself_._ One of the many things she's learned in the first few months of marriage.

He padded back with the drink- she accepted it and the kiss that came with- and then he went out of the room again. "Tom?"

He reappeared with the big comforter from their bed. "If we're going to make a night of it..." he began, wrapping them both in it. "The fire probably won't last two hours."

"So this what we'll do instead of cleaning it out and lighting another like proper people?"

He laughed. "This is why our house is a mess, isn't it?"

She took another sip and handed the tumbler to him. "Reach and put this on the table, would you?"

"Don't you want it?"

"I'll drink it," she promised, as she twined her arms around him. "_After_."

* * *

><p>It's been six days since she escaped to England and this is the first time she's allowed herself to think it:<p>

_I want to go home_.

Still, she won't say it. She has to be strong for Tom now and she is, strong and measured, an endless supplier of empty axioms: "_One day at a time._" "_We'll take it as it comes._" "_We'll figure it out_." They have always spoken so honestly with each other. But he's still in denial about the danger and so she refuses to discuss the future and that leaves them with nothing to talk about except the weather until her husband practically runs from the room, disappears until dinner and then retires without her.

_It's so much harder for him_,for so many reasons, only half of which are known to Papa and the people in the house_. _He was betrayed. He saved the lives of others and he will be made to pay for it with his own and maybe hers and the baby's as well. The bomb was irrefutable. That's why they can't go back. She knows it and she knows _he_ knows it, even if he can't yet accept it. _But I want to go home_.

It surprises her that what comes back- despite all they've done, all they've seen and experienced- are the mundane details, life at the end of the day in Dublin, the little loved-up flat drowning in color and life. _What if it's not _home_ anymore_? Are those perfect days already lost to them? _Will we ever get back there?_

A knock at the door interrupts her rumination. "Come in."

It's Anna. "I've brought you some tea, milady," she offers with too much cheer. Sybil knows it's overcompensation for the tension in the house, a tension with which she's all too familiar, a tension of which she is too often the source- the count, the elopement, the return. And now, in exile and on the run from the authorities. Her father once worried about country rumors; now, the Home Secretary has a file on her. _And here's Anna_, in her tidy uniform and cap, taking great pains to make sure no tea is spilt in the transfer from silver pot to porcelain cup. _Bloody hell_.

"Herbal with mint," Anna chirps, unaware of the absurdity of all this. "That's what Lady Grantham told Mrs. Patmore."

Sybil forces a smile. "The baby doesn't tolerate caffeine," she explains.

"Best keep the baby as comfortable as possible," Anna replies because Anna doesn't know that last week, she spent the night in a public park, silently bargaining with God_ please don't let me_ _miscarry or go into premature labor and don't let the loaded gun go off_. No one in the house knows about that except Tom- and she spared him the worst details. "I brought some sandwiches as well, in case the baby gets hungry."

"Thank you."

Anna is not friends with Lady Sybil- well, she's not _friends_ with any of them- but she's known her for more than half her life. Never has she seen her like this. _Drained_ is not an adjective that could have ever been ascribed to Lady Sybil and it scares her. She wants to believe it's just her advanced condition, but she's noticed it in Tom too, on this most recent visit. She's noticed it in _them_. He's always "_out for a walk_" in the afternoons or "_gone to bed early_" after dinner while Lady Sybil plays bridge with the women. There are no more minor rebellions, like the one Mr. Moseley ran downstairs and relayed: "_I was just up in the library and Mr. Branson put his hand on Lady Sybil's leg- above the knee!- sitting right beside her mother and in plain view of Lord Grantham_! _And not only did she not push it off- she put her hand over his_! _She _liked_ that he did it! _Right in front of her father_! Can you believe it?_"

Anna _can_ believe it. She believes in against all odds- _she_ needs to. She believed Lady Sybil's surety that they would make it and they would be happy, _however, wherever_. She believed Mr. Branson would wait forever and it would be worth it. The odds can't win. They_ can't_.

"Milady." But Anna doesn't know what to say, so she simply reverts to, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, thank you."

"For Mr. Branson then?"

"He's fine. We'll both be fine." She blows on the hot tea and Anna can't help but smile- _a bit of her Dublin life peeking out_. "Thank you, Anna." She is both appreciative and dismissive.

Lady Sybil is not like Lady Mary; she won't be drawn out. _The more she feels the less she shows_, is what Anna has learned over the years. The irrepressible girl Anna watched grow up went quiet during the war, only to return in full-force in the drawing room with the chauffeur. She was here just a month ago, but now...

"I'll leave you to rest then, milady. And I'll bring up some fresh flowers when I come for the tray."

Sybil eyes the still-blooming ones in the vase_. Because two-day old flowers would never do, _she thinks dryly_. _But she can fake it- her upbringing has taught her nothing if not that- and so she inquires, as Anna heads out the door, "What's in season?"

"Daffodils," Anna smiles. "You're so fond of them."

_I'm really not. _Sybil sighs as Anna closes the door behind her_. Not anymore_.

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, One Week Ago<strong>

Storm clouds were gathering overhead, but Sybil had beaten the rain. She rounded the corner onto Merrit Square, ready to be at home with the fire, some dinner, and her husband. She lowered her eyes as she hurried past the burnt-out facade at the end of the block, the one with the blown-out window and the black smoke-stains snaking around the exterior like mourning armbands. Tom made the sign of the cross whenever they walked by and even though she was not Catholic, she did it now. It alleviated some of the guilt- they've no reason to feel guilty, they didn't kill him- but she felt it now, the original sin of having lived. She had come to know this is a common sentiment in Ireland.

She was fishing for her keys when she saw it- it couldn't be missed, a splash of yellow in the unrelenting gray tableau, like a splotch on a painter's palette. Her stomach lurched. A bouquet of yellow flowers on the stoop outside their building. That was it- the signal- the start of the plan they had made that they had prayed they would never need to execute. Her mind raced. _Tom - God- What's happened? What's happened to __Tom? _But she steadied herself on the street, as she always did, with the words that had long been her talisman: _a calm and can-do manner. _

_Yellow_. Yellow was a warning. Red meant _run_. Red meant dead or soon to be. These were yellow- _just_ yellow. They could have been any yellow flower; they happened to be daffodils.

She did not cross the street. Yellow meant don't approach. _Don't go in there. _She can't go home. She glanced around warily, but could see no one. No police. No shifty eyes peering out over a newspaper or from behind a tram schedule. No turncoats. _There's a run on bread and loyalty in this town_ went the joke in certain circles of Dublin. It was first uttered during the Rising; it had started to recirculate recently and they knew why. _All too well why_.

But they had a plan. _The plan, yes, the plan_. The bookstore. _Go to the bookstore_. She turned up her coat collar and walked fast through the rapidly-descending night. _I don't want to be a widow._ Rain had started to fall. _Don't_. _Think about something else- anything else._ It fell faster now. _Good thing I wore a hat_. But the rain hadn't stopped the wind from blowing the wet leaves off the trees. _One of the reasons we picked this neighborhood_. The leaves swirled around her, the light from the street lamps bled on the sidewalk. Sybil wiped her cheeks with her hand. _I don't want to raise our baby alone_. _  
><em>

She turned onto the thoroughfare and was greeted with the too-bright glare of the cinema marquee. _We've seen all these pictures already_. A vendor hawked flowers from under a tarp, trying to persuade the young men in the passing couples to make a grand romantic gesture. Her own young man had been convinced of it at times, they've bought from him before. _What's happened to Tom_? The flower-seller clearly didn't recognize her from afar and he whistled; but upon seeing her close up, he was instantly contrite. "No charge and my apology, Miss," he said as he thrust a single rose toward her. "The color of friendship." She waved it away. _Yellow is too glad for this grim climate_.


	47. Chapter 47: The Bookstore, Dublin

_Thanks so much as always for playing along and for the kind reviews. Also, thank you to the person who left a note about an anachronistic bathroom in the Branson home (apologies). I try to be reasonably historically accurate and the corrections are always appreciated.**  
><strong>_

_We're still setting the scene back at DA- we'll go back to Sybil's first night at the Bransons in the next chapter. Don't worry- there will be a wedding and work and all that other stuff. Plenty more story to tell..._

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, One Week Ago<strong>

If Ireland wins the war, it will be because of places like the inconspicuously-named Bishop Booksellers that served as clearinghouses for the revolution and the people fighting it. Molly O'Shea runs the shop while her husband Sean pretends to work as a plumber (he is actually a top informant for the IRA). Tom knows Sean "_from around_"- that's how Tom put it the first time he took Sybil to meet them for dinner at their place. _We had chicken- overcooked- and wine_, she recalled as she made her way toward the bookstore and _pray to God_, Tom.

From the start, she had liked Molly very much. Molly was just thirty and already had four children who were mostly raising themselves in the streets of south Dublin, but who lined up like soldiers at suppertime, showed their hands were clean, obediently ate and washed and went to bed. Molly kept their latest addition in a creche behind the counter at the bookstore. She knew the business of everyone in the city, had the Irish gift for humor and storytelling, talents which she showcased liberally. Sybil's impression of Molly that first night was that she was the kind of woman Tom's mother wished he had married.

She was less taken with Molly's husband, Sean; his militancy unnerved her from that first dinner and over the course of the year, her apprehension toward him had escalated as the situation in Ireland had. She and Tom had discussed it on the walk home from that first dinner; an innocuous conversation then, but which now seemed prescient:

_"You didn't like him, did you?" Tom surmised as they waited at the corner to cross. "Well, Sean's always been a bit... abrasive. I suspect it would be even more harsh for you. You Brits are used to more buttoned-up conversation than we lot are."_

_"No, it's not that."_

_"But he did bother you." __Tom gave her a sidelong, knowing smile and she knew she was caught; he would never let her get away with less-than-full disclosure. _

_She relented and admitted, __"It did bother me how every time you would make a point, he would pounce on it by stating a far more extreme position and then speaking as if you two were agreed."_

_"Well..." Tom countered judiciously, "I think on the main points- a free and united country- we are agreed."_

_"He struck me as uncompromising," she said flatly._

_"Is it a good thing, though?" Tom posed. "To not compromise your values? To be a person who won't compromise his values?"_

_"I suppose it depends on what you value." They arrived back at their building and the conversation paused while they climbed the hushed stairwell. "Anyway," Sybil continued, when they were back in their flat taking off their coats and shoes, "isn't compromise just another word for change?"_

_"How do you figure?"_

_She hung up her hat as Tom headed down the hall. "Well, if no one was ever willing to compromise, nothing would ever change."_

_"Of course there's change without compromise," he retorted over his shoulder. "We call it war."_

_"My point exactly," she muttered, as she followed him to their bedroom._

The bell over the door tinkled as she entered the bookstore which should have closed an hour ago, but which still had its sign turned to _OPEN_. Molly hurried over and took her arm. "He's in the back," she whispered. "He's not hurt." Sybil nodded; she couldn't speak, she could only walk numbly the thirty-or-so paces to learn their fate.

The storeroom was so crammed it could barely fit one person, let alone two. Tom was sitting on a crate- chin in his hands, elbows on his knees- when she opened the door. He jumped up when he saw her. _He's fine_. "Oh thank God!" she cried. He tried to embrace her, but she resisted, needing to lay eyes and hands on his head, his face, his limbs. She knew what Dublin Castle did to rebels; she'd read the accounts in his paper. She'd seen the pictures. "You're not hurt?"

"No. Not at all, love." She was still inspecting him. "You see? Not a scratch. I'm fine, I'm just fine."

"You're sure?" He nodded emphatically and, finally convinced, she allowed herself to hug him. "Oh, thank God."

"You got the flowers?"

It was a ludicrously unromantic question and she was somewhere between laughing and crying as she replied, "Yes. They were lovely."

He kissed her head before extricating himself, urging her to take his seat on the crate, while he knelt down on the floor in front of her. Then he took her hand and, conjuring all his courage, told her the words she did not want to hear. "They've a warrant, Syb."

She sucked in a sharp breath. This was what she feared. _D__ead or soon to be. _She found her voice somewhere. "For what?"

"Arson, for the estate burning," he answered. "And conspiracy to commit as well."

She exhaled_. Men don't hang for arson_. "But no one was hurt?"

"No," he confirmed, with a self-flagellating shake of his head. He'd give anything to do that night over, to go home to his wife and stay there. _But the story, the story_... no one was reporting the war honestly and so he would; he was determined. "I told you, the family were all turned out before it started. So they could see," he rued. "It's the conspiracy charge- they're trying to frame me as an instigator. A collaborator."

"But arson..." _But men don't hang for arson_. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I was tipped to it by one of my sources. I left work and came here straightaway. I didn't tell anyone where I was going."

"And the source is trustworthy?"

"Yep," he answered, then amended, "As much as anyone these days."

She scoffed. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"He was telling the truth about this," Tom countered. "Three RIC men went to my mother's. Liam sent a message to Molly as soon as they left. She arranged the flowers."

"But..." _It doesn't make sense_. "But it's the British government that wants your newspaper silenced. If they truly wanted you in prison or exiled, why not set you up for an officer murder or the looting of an army barrack? A direct attack on the British authorities."

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Because I wasn't at an army barrack and I was at the estate?"

"So? It's not like evidence matters. They imprison people on their sedition list all the time with no proof. And arson at private house- that's a property crime, it would be tried in a local court," she realized, a glimmer of hope rising over her face. "And there are more Republican courts now-"

"Darling, it's daft to think they'd ever allow the burning of an Anglo estate to be prosecuted in a rebel court that the English don't consider to be legitimate."

"But it's not a war crime, is it? It's not treason," Sybil insisted and then, to punctuate her point, "Treason is what gets you shot against the wall."

"It's different now, I think," he hypothesized. "The British War Office is under a lot of scrutiny for its conduct in Ireland. The American press is firmly in Ireland's corner. A Irish rebel versus the British government in a war crime trial would be highly-publicized- they couldn't afford to be sloppy on the international stage. But the RIC? They're a bunch of local roughnecks. No one could plausibly blame Westminster if some thug constable's gun happens to go off while they're putting the handcuffs on."

She shuddered visibly when he said that; it was all too common a story, buried on A14 in the mainstream paper: _Killed resisting arrest_. _Died of natural causes awaiting hearing. _ Tom uttered a low, disbelieving laugh. "It was so important to the cause to establish our own independent, Irish courts, our own police force, our own penal system. We didn't think that, as a consequence, all the Royal forces would suddenly be rogue. If I'm arrested by them, I have no recourse because they don't recognize the justice system I subscribe to."

"You're not going to be arrested," Sybil resolved, clutching both his hands in hers in her lap. "This is why we made a plan."

"The RIC will come to the house."

"I know. And I know the story I'm to tell them."

Sybil recounted the plan. Tom listened, head down, nodding slightly at times. But Sybil felt his grip tightening until the admission she had been bracing for finally broke loose. "I can't do this. I can't leave you."

"You must. And right away."

"But-"

"No buts. We have a plan. You will be on that boat tonight, Tom. That is the plan. That is what we decided."

"You weren't seven months pregnant then."

"You have to do this," she repeated more adamantly, "for me and the baby. Go and trust me. I know what to do. Go and wait for me," she appealed to him. "I'll come. You know I will. I always have." She smiled down at him, her fingers soothing the knotted skin around his temples, his brow. "And kiss me hello when I get there."

She didn't want to say more, but it had to be said. "And Tom, you must remember," she started delicately, "they'll say anything- about me, about the baby- to get you to confess, but don't believe them." He started to protest, but she raised her voice, overruling his. "They'll tell you any horror story-you know they will- but don't you ever give yourself up. They'll be lying and even if they aren't, it's a lie that they would ever let you barter your life for mine."

"Jesus, what have I done?" he agonized. "What have I done to us?"

"Shh, shh, it will be alright..."

"Oh, Sybil-"

She has never been a crier, she's always kept her feelings close in hand, but she's changed so much, _they_ have changed her so much and Tom's emotions reach deeper in her than even her own. She knew his despair sprung from his paramount desire to love her, to please her, to protect her and watching his reserve crumple now, thinking he was failing at fulfilling that promise, was unbearable for her. She had to stop it. "Tom," she voiced with assurance, taking his face in her hands. "All you have to say to me is, 'I'll see you tomorrow.'"

He nodded, biting his lip. _It's not right._ _It's not right_, but he knew he would do it anyway; there was no other option. "If _anything_-"

She shook her head. _Don't_.

_"_Alright_." I won't. _He kissed her mouth in each corner and on every curve, each committing to memory the expanse of the other's cheek, the other's scent, the taste of mingled tears that wet their skin. As he got up to leave, he lifted her left hand and pressed his lips to their wedding band. "See you tomorrow, then?"

"See you tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Another knock. "Come in, Anna," Sybil calls.<p>

But it's Edith who pokes her head in. "Not Anna. Just me," she says with a smile. "Alright if I come in?" Sybil nods and notices her sister's gait- not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time. It's efficient and almost brusque- square shouldered, square-hipped- Edith moves like a person going somewhere, even when she lacks a destination. She fidgets. _She's kinetic, _Sybil thinks. It's a characteristic that is not valued in the parlor, but will serve her well in the city, if that's where she's to end up.

"You've a letter." Edith's eyes twinkle with mischief. "It's from a Mr. Branson in Dublin."

"For Tom and I?"

"No. It's only addressed to you." Edith turns the envelope over in her hands a few times, almost reluctant to surrender it. "Of course, Liam promised to write me after your wedding. Of course, he didn't."

"That sounds perfectly in character for my brother-in-law."

"He has nice handwriting," Edith notices. Sybil raises one eyebrow suggestively at her, rankling Edith's offense. "Oh, stop! We had fun, yes- but it was one night. We can't all be you, you know. Taking up with Irish Marxists in a- how did you put it?- a wild, runaway romance."

"I don't feel very wild or romantic right now," Sybil retorts, hands splayed over her sizable stomach.

Edith relinquishes the letter with a bemused expression; Sybil puts it on the table beside her as Edith settles on the foot of the bed. "We did have such good fun the night before your wedding, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did."

"I've never been to _any_ party quite like that before- the singing, the bell-ringing, the crush of people." Edith sighs at the remembrance. "It _was_ wild! Absolutely mad!"

Sybil wonders if she should tell her that_ it was just going to a pub, it's what young people do_. But she can't quite tell if that's what Edith yearns for; so recently, she yearned for a quiet country life, taking in cello concerts with the much-older friends of a much-older husband. Even though they have grown up together, and grown closer since the wedding visit, it still seems as if the choices Edith makes in her life are all unintended consequences of the choices of the people around her: Mary flirts, so Edith flirts; Sybil works, so Edith works; both her sisters are married, so Edith must be married and Sybil can't definitely say what _drives_ Edith until she says, "I've never seen a man so utterly in love as Tom was that night..." Her sister sighs, but Sybil respects her too much to offer her pity; she waits for Edith to change the subject, which she does shortly. "Where is Tom, by the way?"

"Marauding," Sybil cracks, although it isn't funny.

"Again?"

"He's restless. He wants to go home. We both do."

"Well, he should have thought of that before-" Edith is halted by her sister's look of approbation. "Sorry. It's not my affair."

"That's true- it isn't." Edith has noticed Sybil is not such the baby anymore; swift and sharp rebukes have replaced whining pleas and she won't be bossed or bullied by her sisters as she used to be.

"It's cold comfort, I'm sure, but I must say, I've enjoyed him at breakfast." She regards Sybil quizzically. "Why have you stopped coming down? As of last month, you were very opposed to the idea that married women should eat alone."

"I'm still opposed to it," Sybil informs her. "But I think it's good for Tom to go down without me. He needs to find his footing- we could be here awhile."

"He's behaved well. You'd be pleased."

"He tells me you've written to the Times about lowering the voting age for women."

"I have," Edith nods and then teases, "Are you worried I'm stealing your thunder?"

"Not at all. You should take an interest in the world," Sybil responds without missing a beat. "Who knows? One day you might have to live in it."

Edith laughs. They are closer, she and Sybil, but they've never shied from squabbling and each has always been more than willing to call the other out on her flaws. "You sound rather indifferent to it."

"I've other wars to wage," Sybil says dismissively. "And besides, the fight for suffrage is over."

"How can you say it's over? You and I still can't vote."

"_Women_ are voting and neither the world nor the Empire have ended because of it. The age limits and restrictions will fall soon enough. Change happens incrementally. It may take a few years, but it will come," Sybil states in that superior way that makes Edith want to yank her hair. "Also, I do have the vote, sort of. As you know, the Countess Markievicz is my MP and since we don't live in a direct democracy, her vote is mine."

"It sounds to me like rationalizing," Edith disputes, just to irritate her. "It sounds to me like Sybil Crawley's lost her fire and succumbed to the status quo."

"It's Sybil _Branson_," her little sister rebukes testily. "And you do realize that I am living in a country in the midst of a _revolution_?"

Edith rolls her eyes. "Oh please- it's not like _you've_ been mounting the barricades!"

"My husband is a _seditionist_."

"Sure, but that's Tom, not you. Tom said you're not involved."

"Edith." Sybil tries to muster patience, but _they just don't get it_. _None of them do_. "Ireland is at war with Britain- no matter what you read in the British papers. _Everywhere_ is a front. _Everyone_ is involved. My husband writes for a revolutionary paper that openly promotes overthrow of British rule in Ireland. I just paid our taxes to Sinn Fein. And during dinner recently, a very nice, very large man came to our door to inform us that, by decree of the Dail Eireann, the free and democratic governing body of the people of Ireland, the constituency of Dublin St. Patrick's is now under control of the Irish Republican Police and we are to no longer recognize the authority of the Crown constables or courts. So although I am '_not involved_,' as you say, my household is committing, on a daily basis sedition, treason and terrorism against the British government."

Edith's eyes are wide- Sybil can see she's been successfully edified on this particular subject and, to her great credit, Sybil can see a hundred questions lighting up in her mind- but she can't quite help taking a dig. "I know it's not as politically committed as taking thirty minutes to write a letter to the editor, _but_-"

"Alright, alright, you've made your point!" Edith interjects. "God, you're still such a show off."

"If you want to see me showing off," Sybil goads with her old fervor, "ask me about contraception!"

"No, thank you!" Edith exclaims, standing up. "Dinner's in two hours- I'd never make it. But we'll talk more."

"I look forward to it." The sisters exchange a grin as Edith goes to leave. But Sybil calls her back and Edith sees her whole demeanor is suddenly different, pensive and troubled. "If you see Tom, please don't mention that a letter came." Edith is clearly confused, so Sybil offers a bit more. "I don't know what's in it- it could be bad news. I'm just trying to manage the mood in this room, you know?"

"I think so."

Sybil nods her thanks and once Edith's shut the door, sets to open the letter from Liam.

* * *

><p><strong>Phoenix Park, Dublin<strong>

**One Week Ago**

The dark was quiet but not cold. One might even say it was warm- with a coat of course. The grass was dewy, the air dry. The night fell down around them like crepe paper, thin and transparent, able to be rustled by a breath or movement on the small blanket. In the nascent hours of a new day, everything was black and green, a jaded panorama. _The Jungle Book_ has sat on the shelf of her childhood bedroom for as long as she could remember. She would have loved this as a child- hidden among the tall trees, unseen, unheard, left alone with her imagination.

She does not love it now.

Nature was showing its shadow tonight; the shadow of the golden-hued nights walking the lawn, standing and talking under the willow tree. _Is it still so golden_? she wondered. _Was it the place? Or the time_? The first time he had taken her here to Phoenix Park, in those early days, they had been caught kissing on the path by an elderly man who reproached them with, _"You better marry that girl," _and laughing, still clutching each other sheepishly (but not sheepish enough to let go), he'd held up her hand to prove their intentions were true.

"This is the first night we've spent apart since we left England."

Her involuntary admission punctured the silence, spurred by an emotion stronger than fear churning inside her. More than that, more than the adrenaline, she felt the ache. For Tom. For the kiss that closed the day. For his hands cupping her elbows, pulling her closer; to close her eyes enveloped in the certainty that she was safe, she was loved, it would be alright.

_"So we're all right?_"

_"Yes, we are all right."_

They didn't need the words anymore- they had so many other ways of speaking to each other- but she needed them now. And once the words started to come, they didn't cease.

"Before we were married, he would come upstairs after your mother went to sleep. He'd sit on the floor, next to the bed, and we'd stay up and talk for hours- about the newspaper, nursing, the future. All we wanted to do and accomplish. The places we would see. He'd tell me stories about you boys and make me think that maybe I'd like a houseful of little hellions all our own..."

She trailed off, a slight, wistful expression waxing over her features, pulling at the grass as the past pulled at her. "We wanted it all, I suppose," she continued softly, aloud but to no audience. "Travel the world, brilliant careers, a brood of lively children, the cinema and theatre once a week apiece, the pub with friends another. Read every book, win Ireland's freedom, show what a woman can do. Change the laws, change the country, change the world and still make love twice a day."

"It sounds wonderful."

She looked upward, as if surprised to find she was not alone, and regarded the moon, pondering the vantage in Yorkshire. "It was."

It was.

_It was_.


	48. Chapter 48: The First Night Part I

_Thanks so much as always for the reviews! **  
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_We're going back to the beginning- the first night in Ireland. _

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><p><strong>Dublin, <strong>**May 1919**

"Not what you're used to, I'm sure," Mrs. Branson speculated as she came into the dining room with a plate of boiled ham and cabbage. "But it's Tom's favorite."

"Is it?" Sybil smiled across the table at him. "I must learn to make it then."

"What's to learn?" Mrs. Branson retorted, setting down the hot plate between the bread and mashed potatoes. "It's _boiled ham_- it's exactly as it sounds."

"I can teach you," Tom offered, smiling back at Sybil and noting with satisfaction that her mouth still had a suspiciously red tint after he had spent the better part of the last half-hour kissing at it.

"You'll teach _her_?"

"Sure, why not? I've been cooking for myself for years. It's no chore. I'd even say I enjoy it." He surveyed the spread on the table and frowned. "This is grand, Ma, but it's Sybil's first night- we should have wine. Do we have any here?"

"If we do, it's just what didn't get drunk at Easter," Mrs. Branson replied over her shoulder as Tom got up to search the kitchen. "You know I don't keep it in the house." Sybil noticed the remark was pointed, but the older woman's comportment betrayed no details. And now she and Mrs. Branson were alone- just the two of them and the incredibly uncomfortable, conspicuous silence. Sybil was a well-practiced conversationalist, but it was quite clear that Tom's mother had no interest in small chat with her. _Just be respectful_, she coached herself as she listened to Tom rummaging around in the next room, fingering the fold of her napkin idly and waiting for Mrs. Branson to acknowledge her.

Of course, Mrs. Branson knew what they'd been up to while she'd been making dinner, after she had barked at Tom to "_take her suitcases upstairs! For God's sake, you leave her here like a gypsy- she'll think you you don't have any manners_!"

_"I wouldn't think that," Lady Sybil refuted. __But Tom was already on his feet getting the luggage, grateful to escape to an unseen place, that girl following him like a puppy up the stairs- that girl who's not going back, according to Tom. _Can't_ go back- he's seen to that. __"And come straight back down afterward._"

Of course, he hadn't- and when they did, it was with fattened lips and sheepish glances. She raised four boys, she _knows_- but this must be anarchy for Lady Sybil, stealing kisses upstairs with a boyfriend or whatever her kind call it.

She remembered the first time Tom had Kathleen over for dinner- _God, it must be ten or twelve years ago by now_. He'd walked down the street to fetch her and they'd come in from the cold with the same lips, the same sheepishness and Katy looked completely enamored, as a girl of sixteen should, to be an object of his affection. Katy was good stock- strong and loyal, a hard worker- and Mrs. Branson had thought they were well-matched and maybe in a year or two, when they'd grown up, they might make a good marriage. _Fat chance of that_.

She raised her eyes to Lady Sybil, suddenly wondering how old she was. Not that the years mattered; she was certain Lady Sybil was, and would remain, far more unprepared for the world and its challenges than Katy had ever been, even at sixteen. Katy had been born knowing more than Lady Sybil would ever likely learn in her life. _And now we're stuck with her_. "Did he show you to your room?"

"Oh yes," Sybil responded, pleased for the question. "It's lovely, thank you."

"It's not much, but it'll have to do."

"It'll do perfectly." Mrs. Branson nodded curtly- her period on the conversation- but Sybil was determined to capitalize on the opening. "Will Liam be home tonight? I'm so excited to meet him."

"Liam has a new girl," Mrs. Branson informed her, "so he's not around much and certainly not much at night."

"What's this? Liam's got a new girl?" Tom inquired, reappearing with a bottle of red and three glasses in hand. "Found it under the sink." _A strange place to keep wine_, Sybil thought as he uncorked it and poured a glass. "Sybil, love, can I serve you?"

Sybil glanced at Mrs. Branson, unsure if she should accept. "I suppose just one. For ceremony's sake."

"Mam?"

"No."

"Well, raise your water then," Tom said cheerfully as he reclaimed his seat. He spent the last hour helping Sybil unpack in his childhood bedroom, regaling her with stories of how he and his brothers had made the dents in the walls and all their harebrained boyhood schemes that started with slipping out the lone narrow window. She had laughed heartily at it all, seemed genuinely happy and at ease here, despite mother's reception. And she was definitely pleased when he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her, a reunion they'd both been desperate for since leaving the hotel that morning. "_I can't believe you're here..._"

"A toast." Tom stood up and raised his glass. "There's a proverb- Mam knows it- which says: 'Time is a wonderful storyteller.' She said it to me before I left for England and I couldn't have ever imagined how wonderful it would be. That's thanks to you. So welcome home, love. I can't wait to see how your story unfolds and I hope this night and every night after are all you wish them to be."

Mrs. Branson tipped her drink impassively, averting her gaze as Tom walked around and kissed Sybil's cheek. _Why did he have to bring up the night he left for England? _Sad as it was, she had been full of hope for him. England was supposed to be a story of new and better opportunities, not becoming yoked to this Lady and certain disaster.

_It's hopeless though_, she realized, watching them make eyes at each other across the table, oblivious to her presence, let alone her trepidation. "Come on, Tom_._" She nudged the plate in his direction. "Look alive and serve us before it gets cold!"

Tom heeded the instruction and set to doling out portions. "What was that about Liam and a girl?"

"Her name is Clare and she lives over in Temple Bar," his mother relayed. Then, quirking an eyebrow at her son, added, "Her father's a watchman."

Tom chuckled. "So I see." To Sybil, he explained, "Her father works nights."

"_Oh_," she understood.

"And how long has Clare been around?"

"Three weeks? Maybe four? He slinks in at dawn and thinks I don't notice."

"Want me to have a talk with him?"

"And what would you say?" his mother joshed him, as she passed him her plate. "He's not doing anything you didn't do."

Tom halted, mid-ladle. "_Mam_."

"Oh, forgive me." Tom made an apologetic nod in Sybil's direction and resumed serving, but Mrs. Branson couldn't help herself. "You said she was family now..." To avoid her son's glare, she shifted her gaze to Sybil. "You'll find we speak very honestly here. Don't think it does much good to do otherwise."

"I couldn't agree more!" Sybil agreed with great enthusiasm; and she very much looked forward to acting on that principle if Mrs. Branson kept it up. _  
><em>

With food on every plate, Tom resumed his seat. Sybil reached to take a sip of water, but was arrested by Mrs. Branson's, "We give thanks before we break bread in this house." Sybil did not think a sip of water constituted breaking bread, but she just smiled thinly and lowered her hand. "Perhaps you'd like to do it."

"I'm afraid I don't know it," Sybil said without apology. "It's not our custom to say it."

"Of course it isn't." _What would your lot have to be grateful for_? Mrs. Branson was contemplating speaking that thought aloud, until Tom jumped in to say he would do it. "If you remember," she muttered under her breath.

"Bless us for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive and make us ever mindful of the needs of others. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen." Tom grinned victoriously at his mother. "Twenty-two years of meals with you won't be erased that easily."

"Thank the Lord for that." Sybil smiled at their good-natured dynamic. She was finding it fascinating to watch Tom _at home_; it was here that he was at his most comfortable, most confident. This is the place that made him who he was- that daring young man in the driver's seat who dared speak to her, passionately and as an equal, who dared propose marriage and promise her happiness when he was only supposed to carry her bags- before the place she was from started closing in on him.

"So what are your plans?" Mrs. Branson inquired as the meal began.

"I think tomorrow we plan to get out early, buy some tram tickets, and give Sybil the lay of the land." Tom recounted the plan they made on the ferry. "I'd like to go take a look at the newspaper office. And I think we'll try and scope out some hospitals."

"Yes, in the cab today we drove through a neighborhood- Phibsboro, I think," Sybil added. "I'd like to see if there might be some work there."

Mrs. Branson almost choked on her water. "You want to work in Phibsboro, do you?" she repeated, as if it were the most preposterous idea she'd ever heard, which it very well might have been.

"Well, it does seem they use the help," Sybil replied defensively.

"The Lord's mercy couldn't help those people, let alone the likes of you!" Mrs. Branson laughed. "I don't mean to be harsh, but you've obviously not thought this out."

"Obviously not," Sybil huffed. "I've only been here a few hours."

"You, working in Phibsboro! You'd probably wind up knifed in an alley!"

Tom's utensils clanked on the plate. "Ma!"

It was as sharply as he had ever addressed her and Mrs. Branson was aware she had pushed too far. "It's not a joke," she attempted to explain. " A girl got killed up there just the other week. It was in the newspaper. She was just nineteen. Horrible story."

"Why'd you bring it up then?" Tom challenged angrily. "Jesus Christ."

That was_ his_ provocation. "Watch yourself, Tom."

"Don't tell me-"

But Sybil blunted his words. "Abide your mother, Tom. It's her house." She calmly took a bite of cabbage. Mrs. Branson watched her son weigh escalation, fury still on his face, then yield to his fiancee's order and pick up his fork again. Mrs. Branson observed that Sybil did not look over at him, as she apparently had no doubt as to how he would respond. After allowing a minute for the temperature to drop, she said, as if nothing had happened, "We also have a wedding to plan."

"I have news for you on that front," Mrs. Branson told them. "Father Fahey can see you on Sunday at three." Sybil and Tom looked hopefully at one another; Mrs. Branson was pleased, in this moment at least, to pacify them. "Though you'd best let him see you at Mass that morning."

Tom took Sybil's hand. "He's agreed to marry us?"

"Even though I'm not Catholic?"

"He's _considering_ it," Mrs. Branson clarified. "I've been pleading your case nearly every morning after Mass, but he has reservations. He hasn't seen Tom in six years and now you're back, wanting to marry and make the mother of your children a Protestant."

"Yes, I do and I won't apologize for it to him," Tom affirmed defiantly and then, with an even stare at his mother, added, "nor to anyone else either."

Sybil once again moved to diffuse the tension; this was important and Tom was losing the plot. _ We won't_ have _to worry about his mother if we can marry and move out and be done with it. _A month here was already seeming like an eternity. "Does he not like Protestants?"

"I don't think he likes to marry them, no," Mrs. Branson replied. "He's a Catholic priest- he serves Catholic faithful."

"Does he expect me to convert?"

"I don't-"

"That's not an option," Tom interrupted his mother. He turned to Sybil. "If you wanted to convert because you wanted to change your faith, then fine. But you won't be converting because it suits Father Fahey. You've more than proven your commitment. If Father Fahey won't marry us, we'll find someone else who will. I'm sure we'd have no trouble at the Unitarian church on St. Stephen's or at city hall."

"A civil marriage! What would your parents say to that?"

"I think they understand they are past having a say," Sybil answered her in a steely voice.

"Well, I better warn you then- Father Fahey wants you to wait a year."

"A year!" they exclaimed in unison.

"He wants to become acquainted with Sybil and to better understand your intentions."

"We want to be married and we want him to do it. Which part does he not understand?"

"No use getting upset about it now," Sybil counseled. "He's agreed to meet with us. Let's just wait and see what he says and talk about something else in the meantime."

The meal went on, mostly in silence.

* * *

><p>Tom had just finished making the sofa into a makeshift bed when his mother came down the stairs. "Need another blanket?"<p>

"Nah, the sheet'll do." He tossed a spare pillow at one end and sat down. She hovered.

"That pillow's terrible," she frowned. "But I gave the better one to her."

Tom read it for what it was- an apology. "As you should have."

"I figured you'd suffer it better than she would."

"Thank you." He had ceased to be mad about what happened at dinner; his mother helped Sybil settle in and even brought her a cup of warm milk "_to ease the anxieties of the first night in a new place_." Tom knew his mother's accommodation was directed at him, not Sybil, but he didn't care as long as she was the beneficiary. He threw an amused glance over his shoulder to where she was standing behind the sofa. "Have a seat and stay awhile?"

"I just came to say goodnight."

"We did that already," he reminded her, "before you went upstairs to bed."

"Well, I was going to bed, but I wanted to have a look at you," she confessed, a soft wistfulness seeping into her voice. She put her palm on his face. "It's been six years. I was starting to forget what you looked like. But, you haven't changed." She smiled and Tom realized it was the first real serenity he'd had seen in her since they'd arrived; only then did he understand how deeply the situation with Sybil was troubling her. She smoothed back his hair, a reflexive motion for which she was immediately embarrassed. "You're too old for me to be doing that."

"I won't tell," he promised as she came around and sat down beside him.

"You do need a haircut though."

"I know. A few weeks not working and I'm a mess." He chuckled, remembering how he once overheard Mr. Carson cluck that the chauffeur had a neater presentation than the house staff. "I'll do it on Saturday. I've got to buy some suits and shoes as well."

"Got to look sharp for your new job."

"Got to show you respect yourself. Isn't that what you taught us?"

"So you were listening," she teased him. "Who would have guessed?"

He shifted towards her, propping an elbow on the back of the sofa. "Sybil offered to order me a proper suit, London tailored and everything, as a gift, but I told her no. I want to make an impression but it won't do much good if the impression I'm making is of someone else- someone who gets his clothes tailored on Savile Row. But it was a fine suit."

"She shouldn't be-" He stopped her with a look. "Nevermind."

"You'd like her if you got to know her. I think maybe that's what you're afraid of."

"Afraid of your little Lady?"she mocked in disbelief. "Not hardly!"

"You want to hate them, but maybe you won't."

"I don't hate anyone," she objected, "but that doesn't mean I want one of them marrying my son. Don't look at me like that- her people feel exactly the same." But because they were getting on so well and actually talking, she opted to take a conciliatory route. "For what it's worth, I don't think she's insincere. I think she just doesn't know." She sighed, heavily and honestly. "And I just don't think people can change that much. They might want to, they might try to and they might even succeed for awhile, but life is relentless."

She regarded her son, who seemed puzzled by that comment, as if it were riddle and not a truth that had circumscribed his life, considering how much of her mind she should speak before deciding on all of it. "I'm not one to talk much about your father, but he said something to me right before he left that has stayed with me. He'd been doing well for a few weeks- working, coming home, going to church. He even took you boys to see the Sunday puppet show in the park, do you remember?"

"I do." Tom was surprised, but he did- a vague memory of too-bright sun, a marionette ghost haunting a feeble-minded farmer, and his father's laugh. "I do remember that."

"I thought maybe it really would be better... but then Monday came and Tuesday and on Wednesday, he stumbled home and I knew I'd been wrong. I said to him, 'But you were doing so good.' And he said to me, 'Ah, love- I'd be the best man in the world if only I didn't have to be it everyday!'"

Tom had never been privy to details of his parents' marriage- his mother had never spoken of it- and he heard it now through the prism of his own experience as a soon-to-be husband of a woman he loved more than his own life; a woman to whom he could never imagine saying those words- so cavalierly- and then walking out and leaving her to raise his children, alone, with no more than a _good luck to ya_. "God, Ma- I'm sorry."

She dismissed his sympathy. "It was over and done long ago. But I tell you it now only because the day may come when Lady Sybil decides she wants fine things again, or she wants her children to have them, and you won't be able to deliver them. And you don't deserve that. You will be a good husband and a good provider- I don't want to see it wasted on someone who won't ever be able to appreciate that because it will always be insufficient for her."

"I hear you, Mam," Tom started, treading carefully after her confession. "I know you're saying it because you want to protect me and because of your own experience. And I don't know the future, so I won't say you're wrong. But I know I won't be happy without her, so I've got to the take the chance," he impressed. "No matter how it's fated to end. Do you understand?"

"Understand, yes. Agree?" She left it unfinished and saw, as ever, unbridled optimism in her boy's eyes. _Wind at his back always _no matter what_._ "I don't know how you turned out so well, but I'm glad you did. You're the best of all of them, Tommy," she told him. "The brightest and the best."

Tom's mother was a person of copious pride and few compliments and that was a paramount one; he was almost abashed. "Your youngest will give me a run for my money."

"Liam's sharp as a whip, but he's selfish. He might have the right ideals, but he lacks values."

"Give him time," Tom countered. "As you said, there's a lot of my younger self in him."

"No, you were always righteous, through and through."

"Frank's a good man, giving you all those grand-babies."

"Yes," she concurred, "though that's the most he'll ever do in life. He's a good man. Nothing exceptional, but there's nothing wrong with that. Good is certainly better than the alternative."

"You mean like Da?"

"Your father yes, but I was thinking of your other brother," his mother responded. "Did you ever see him in England?"

Tom shook his head. "I traded a letter or two with him when I first arrived, but that's it. I didn't even bother to tell him Sybil and I were passing through Liverpool- we just stayed at a hotel." He shrugged. "We've never been close."

"He's not close with anyone, I don't think. Never married, no children. He doesn't write me and if he ever comes back to Ireland, he doesn't tell me about it." Her unemotional tone was belied by her hands twisting in her lap. "He is my great regret. He got the brunt of it, by accident of birth- Frank was already out of the house and you two were just boys. Keiran was fifteen, he could manage on his own, and the lifeboat was too small. So I let go." She sat back. "I was no kind of mother to him. He's right to have nothing to do with me now."

"You did what you had to do. And Keiran did manage, just as you thought. Got his own garage in Liverpool last I heard. Funny, isn't it? How we both wound up working with cars. Must run in the blood."

The mention of bloodlines brought back the question his mother had been meaning to ask him. "Is it true your Lady lives in a castle?"

"What? Why do you ask?"

"Is it true? Liam said it has towers just like Parliament."

"Yes, it's true," Tom admitted. "But she lives here now." His mother could only shake her head, which made him indignant. "I was born in a tenement next door to a slaughterhouse."

"I know," his mother interjected wryly. "I was there."

"I didn't tell her that when we drove through there today," he confessed. "But I'd like not to be judged on where I've lived and I'd hope she'd be accorded the same."

"None of it makes you doubt?" she asked, incredulous. "Not even a little?"

"No. Why should it?"

She really had nothing to say to that. After a long, quiet moment, she conceded, "She is a beautiful girl. You always did like the prettiest ones."

"Well, you know what they say. Men like women who are like their mothers."

"Oh, spare me!" his mother chided him. She rose and squeezed his shoulder; she wasn't one for kisses or cuddles. "Save the charm for your Lady and go to sleep."

"Goodnight, Mam."

Tom waited until she had climbed the stairs to lie down, but sleep was not on his mind. It was Sybil, always Sybil, asleep in his old room just overhead. And if she were not asleep, he wondered what she was awake and thinking of... was she thinking, as he was, of Liverpool, a lavender sky, and love, always love.


	49. Chapter 49: The First Night Part II

_Thanks so much as always for the reviews! _

* * *

><p>Sybil had been lying down in Tom's childhood room for nearly an hour, unable to sleep. The bed was hard and uncomfortable, even more than the bed in the cottage or the lumpy one in the hotel, and the wooden slats supporting the thin mattress pierced her hipbones when she turned. <em>No wonder he can sleep anywhere<em>. The sofa in the parlor was probably softer and she was glad of it; he needed to rest up before starting his new job on Monday.

_We will not scrimp on the bed_, she decided. They could economize on other purchases, but not the bed. Their bed would top-of-the-line with a featherbed on top, four pillows (at least), and pressed sheets- made up with hospital corners, of course. _Of course__. _This would be their house_- her_ house to run-and_ s_he wouldn't have it any other way_._

__I wonder if he is sleeping now..._? _

She could not sleep in this bed a year. She could not stay in this house a year._That was not the plan_. The plan was a month, just while the banns were read. _Now the priest is threatening to muck it up_. They had not considered, they had just _assumed- _if they _had_ considered it, they wouldn't have- _and what if..._?

_What an idea, _that she could see an entire new life into the world and it would still_- still!-_ not be a year. She could not fathom it, as she stared at the ceiling, twisting the end of her braid with her fingers. _It was stupid_, she thought, not to wait or take any precaution at all. _But I'm not sorry_.

"_To live with him- unmarried_?" Her mother's voice, stringing up a notch on the last word, echoed in her mind. That was the worst of all possibilities to Mama. _But would it really be so impossible_? Sybil wondered. _If we had no other choice, if we couldn't be married?_ To Mama, yes. _But do people here hold such prejudices_? She wasn't sure why anyone should care. They were living in the same house now, after all. Yesterday, they had told the hotel manager they were married: they had their meal, brushed their teeth and went to sleep; when they awoke, they yawned and dressed and went on with their lives. And yes, sometime in between, they had found each other- noses and lashes and sweet little laughs, and shed the last secret between them with no one the wiser. She could have stayed in his stare forever as he spoke softly to her- "_so much, for so long_"- touching his face with her own whispered wish, "_I should like you to always be so happy with me_."

And they _were_ happy and it _was_ beautiful and even more than, _it was right_- right for them, right that it should be there, halfway between the old and the new, right that it should be then, a proverbial crossing an accompaniment to an actual one- and _what business was it of anyone's_? They didn't know, not at all.

_Did they_?

She could still feel it, the place where he had etched their love in her- not quite painful, just _present; _all day, every time she stood up or shifted in her seat, it was there shouting her difference to the world and she wondered if anyone else could hear it. She observed the women on the ferry and even Mrs. Branson, realizing they all must have experienced it once too- _every woman in the world, at some point_- wondering when and where and with whom, how they had felt and what they had thought. _Mama too_- she didn't want to _talk _to her, God no, but if she could just peek inside the mind of her younger self... also in a strange bed in a strange land, the accent speaking softly to her different from her own. But she remembered that her father had not loved her mother, not then- _t__hen it was not the same at all_- and quickly put it out of her mind.

_I need a friend,_ she laughed. She used to have lots of friends; she and Imogen used to command their little gang, the new class of debutantes taking London by storm with endless conversations about crushes and clothes. She had invoked these friends as a reason to stay, but the last time she had visited with them (reluctantly, Mama had forced her), a soiree at Imogen's with her brother and Larry and the usual crew, she had found the whole lot of them insufferable. Tom Bellasis wasn't there, but they prattled on as if nothing had changed. Tom Bellasis was _dead_- along with Cary and James and Paul Morley- and _still_, they carried on as if nothing had changed. She had stopped speaking after an hour, spent the rest of the evening watching the clock and the window, waiting for the car to come. When it did, she bolted for the door and Larry followed, to corner her, but the butler was too quick with her coat. And then there was Tom, his hand lifting hers, taking her far and fast away...

"How was your evening?"

"Awful." Tom glanced back, concern rising. The man in the doorway had watched her leave, blurred by the shadows except for the incandescent white of his dress shirt and a sneer of rejection; it was a look that made Tom glad to get her into the motor. "What was so bad about it?"

She vented a bit about the vacuous conversation, the unconscionable excess, their ignorance. "Did I used to be like that?" she suddenly needed to know.

He slid his eyes to hers, his smile a mild indictment. "It's nice out," he demured, "now that the rain's stopped."

"It is a nice night," she agreed, leaning up over his shoulder. "Let's salvage it. Pull over."

His face went stoic. "I don't think so, milady."

"I didn't ask what you think. I didn't _ask_ anything at all." It came out meaner than she intended, like all their words these days. 1918 had not brought peace between them; _more_ was still an open question. His jaw twitched, but he pulled the brake. He _worked_ for her, after all. "There's an overlook just ahead." The car eased to the side.

He jumped out and she started to follow, but he halted her. "Wait. It's too muddy. You'll ruin your shoes."

"I'll have to risk it. Unless you want to carry me," she breezed as her eyes danced. "Again."

But he did not look up. "There are some stones- you can step on them," he said, sweeping the mud away with the toe of his boot. He helped her down and walking backwards, with both hands, guided her across the cleared stones. "There's one to your left." He was not wearing gloves. "Your other left."

"Right," she joked. He did not smile.

The last rock by the edge was longer than a step. "Jump," he instructed and she did, teetering, until his hands moved to brace her arms, dropping them just as quickly. She looked out at the vista before them- sunken hills rising over patchwork farms, the land of her childhood. "Mama thinks I should get out more," she relayed quietly, a hint of shame in her voice, for they both knew what she meant.

_Get out more. _He digested the directive, taking a few steps in the other direction. _Your mother doesn't mean out, __she means _in- _inside, where you belong_. "We should go back. They'll worry something's happened."

_Like what_? she wanted to ask, but she didn't dare. She regarded him, hands stuffed in his pockets, stare fixed on the distance. She could have kissed him- here, now- if only he hadn't put that ultimatum between them. If a kiss could be a _just_ a kiss. _We could have dared_. She sighed. "Alright."

He led her back to the car, the last step depositing them too close together on a too-snug rock, both her hands in his. For one breathless moment, there in the dark, he did not let go and neither did she. When he reached for the door handle, the moonlight cast over his face and she saw it- the pale pain of too much love, something queasy and swollen, too tender to touch. She did not consider what her own face might have revealed.

_But then last night_... It had been so different, with their skin flush and warm and victorious under each other's fingers, stoking a shared and slightly delirious joy. "I've done this before," he exhaled. "That was new."

_"...the most beautiful and the most loved." _She sighed. She had. Oh, how she had!

Two quick raps on the door interrupted her recollection and she scooted up on her elbows as Tom entered the room. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"Nothing." He shut the door soundlessly and came over to the bed. She was wearing a frilly white nightdress, a thick braid tied with a white ribbon over her shoulder. She looked... well, a lot different than last night.

"You can't be in here, Tom." She warned him with a look. "Your mother-"

"- sleeps like the dead. Trust me." He took her face in his hands. "I just wanted to kiss you goodnight properly."

"I'm very glad of it, but still..." She finally broke, leaning back against the low headboard. "We can't. I won't."

"No, I know. I wouldn't ask."

"Your mother already hates me."

"She doesn't _hate _you." He offered a compromise, taking a seat on the floor. "Besides, I can't come to you like this," he chuckled, indicating a ruffle on her nightdress. "I feel like I should give you a lolly and a pat on the head."

She rolled her eyes. "That's Mama. I've had them since before the war. I suppose I never had any reason to buy to new ones- no one but my parents and sisters ever saw them." She paused. "Though Mary always had very grown-up sleepwear and even Edith... I'll have to buy new ones now. I hope sooner rather than later," she finished with an imploring look.

He rested his chin on the bed. "Right. You handled it well- better than me- and I think you're right, we'll just wait and see what the priest-"

"I could live with you," she blurted out. "If he says no, if we can't-"

"We're a long way from that, love. And there are other options."

"I don't think I could have said that- _before_- but I can now. I would live with you, unmarried, if we couldn't be."

He shook his head. "We can't do that."

"Why?"

"For starters, you'd never be hired. Most hospitals are Catholic, they wouldn't even consider it. And people here- Jesus."

"It seems to me there's a more liberal attitude here- Liam and his girlfriend. You."

He shifted uneasily. "There's a... toleration, I suppose, because it happens, as long as you treat it as a failing of the flesh. You drank too much, she was too pretty, you're young and stupid or just stupid... But you can't _decide_ to do it. _You _can't decide to do it," he repeated with changed emphasis. "A woman who _decides _to live outside the law with a man? No. That would not go over well here. And social ostracism is not the avenue to your happiness or mine."

"But I've already _done_ it."

"I'm not defending it. And if it were only our world..." He smiled at that, _what a lovely idea._ "But it's not. So we'll wait and see what the priest says."

"And if he says no, we'll have it done at City Hall," she resolved. "As soon as possible."

"You don't like the idea of the Unitarian church?"

"We'd probably have to wait there as well. City Hall would be easier."

"We can do that," he nodded slowly, "though it's not the wedding _I_ want." She looked expectantly at him. "I want to see you come down the aisle in a white dress and a veil with flowers and all of that," he told her without embarrassment. "And I want to be _ordered _to kiss you in front of everyone. What's funny?"

She lolled her head on the pillow, unable to suppress her amusement. "That's just very sentimental, is all."

"You're the unsentimental one, not me."

She scoffed. "And how do you figure that?"

"You've never said you love me," he stated, certain this truth would win him the argument.

"Of course I have!"

"Not _to_ me."

"Well, that's- it's not- I wouldn't say that to _anyone_!"

"Posh people speaking plain their feelings," he teased. "Oh, the horror."

She knew he wasn't serious, but still, it upset her to think he might doubt her. "How can you call me unsentimental when I'm threatening to defy God and the law to be with you?" she challenged, toying with his hand. "Action speaks more than words, I think."

"That's why your people have Empires and my people have poetry," he rued. "But I guess we need both, don't we?"

"Then we are well-matched."

"I think so," he agreed.

"It's just- when we tried to elope, we expected to just show up in Gretna Green, a place we didn't live and had never been to, where no one knew us- and some townsperson would declare us married because under their law, anyone can marry anyone. But what would be different, really? Would we be any more moral because a smithy declared us so?" As she spoke, she became more confident and convinced of her view. "Before last night, I thought it such a great thing-"

"Do you think it not so great now?" came his jocular interjection. "I did you wrong then. You should demand a do-over."

"A _grave_ thing. A thing of great _consequence_. But it's not, not really," she concluded. "And so easily done." She did not mean for it to sound like an invitation, but she would not have been disappointed if he took it as such; looking at him, she saw he was very much considering it. Did Liverpool throb in him as much as in her? Could he feel it now too? Not pale, but blood-red like muscle and mouths and- "I know that we can't, and I'm probably not supposed to say it out loud, but all I want is for you to love me like you did before."

"You have to know how much I want that too..." They kissed until, this time, it was he who broke away. "I'd better go. Sweet dreams." He meant to leave, but he couldn't help brushing the tendrils that had come loose, _she's really here_... after the talk with his mother about his father and about the past, realizing that he had spent far more than a few years of his life uncertain that someone he loved loved him back. And in the end, only one of them was true. _She is really here_. He reached his arms around her. "I love you. I'll say it every day forever, I swear it."

Words spoken softly in a strange bed, in a strange land, in an accent different from her own. Words her mother had never heard, not now, when it was all so new and hopeful._ I should be thanking you, for I will never know otherwise. For me, it is perfect_. She leaned closer and recalled so clearly being in the motor back in England- like an inverse deja vu, aware that she was now living an unlived moment. She would not miss the chance again. Lips to his ear, she whispered, "I love you," punctuated with a kiss on his cheek.

He turned his face to hers, clearly pleased and moved- emotions reflected in her own face; it needed no confirmation. "Were you horrified to say it?"

"A little," she laughed. "But as with all things, I'm sure it will get easier with practice."

* * *

><p>Mrs. Branson was back from morning Mass and had just sat down with her cup when she heard the front door. In the next minute, her bleary-eyed and disheveled youngest son was in the kitchen scrounging for tea and a bit of breakfast. "Well, look who it is. Good <em>morning<em>!" Then, with a smidgen more sympathy, she added that the kettle was still hot.

"Great." His head throbbed, he had barely slept and he was starving. "Wild night." He grabbed a roll from the breadbox while waiting for his tea to steep. "And I'm going to be late to work."

"Again? Do you ever think Ireland's future might be better served with a night's rest?"

He shrugged, then grinned. "Clare and her friends aren't much for sleep." She shot him a look. "Oh, lay off, Mam! You have four good-for-nothing sons and who's the only one who's faithfully beside you at church every Sunday?"

"Only to get a look at Margaret McLean!"

"You can't blame me for that! She practically beat a path to get a seat in the pew right in front of us."

"In front of _you,_" she couldn't help but smile.

"I'm glad you've come to see it my way," he nodded emphatically.

"You're twenty-two years old. You should be looking for a wife, not for a glance down Margaret McLean's dress." He feigned offense, which she ignored. "You think you're fooling me? I did raise four good-for-nothing sons, as you pointed out." Liam didn't even try to argue, just offered a rakish grin from underneath slightly shaggy hair. _The lot of them- what's the matter with these boys_? "You need a haircut as well," Mrs. Branson noticed. "You and Tom both." At the mention of his brother, Liam's posture immediately changed; it did not go unnoticed by his mother. "You missed your brother last night. He was sorry about that."

Liam was not sorry he had not been home to welcome Tom _and her, _a fact of which his mother was well aware. "Is he home now?"

"No. They left early to go into the city center."

"You've met the princess then." He slid into the chair next to hers and stole the sugar spoon from her saucer. "So. What's she like?"

"Pretty. Rich." Mrs. Branson was circumspect in her description. "No mistaking that. She showed up wearing a coat that cost more money than Tom's ever made, I'm sure."

"And _English_," he prompted.

Mrs. Branson nodded. "She is very English."

"And what'd she think of this?" He indicated the humble environs.

"Oh, it's _lovely." _They both snickered.

"Not bad, Mam," Liam complimented. "I'd almost take _you_ for a toff." He was quiet for a minute before inquiring, "And Tom? How's he?"

"Tom is the same," his mother relayed. "The same, except that he is in love. And before you ask, so is she." She sipped her tea absently. "Doesn't make it any less foolish, but that's the truth." She set the cup down with a sigh. "Tom said they'd be back by dinner- will you be joining us?"

"I don't think so. Clare's nephew is being christened in Lucan tomorrow. I'm taking the train up after work today. I'll probably stay there for the weekend."

"Tom will want to hear about your job working for Mr. de Valera."

"I don't work for de Valera, Mam," Liam corrected her with a sort of pleased exasperation. He was important and he knew it- just not _that_ important. "I work for people who work for people who work for him."

"Still, Tommy will want to hear about it and to tell you about his new position as well."

"He didn't schedule his trip with me!" Liam protested. "And I have plans." He glanced up at the clock and gulped down the rest of his tea. "I already told Clare I'd come. I think she wants to show me off."

His mother collected his cup with consternation. "I'm sure that was a hard ask of you."

"No. It wasn't. Because there isn't anything I'd rather do less than chum around with Tom's English princess."

"You hold your tongue about her," she directed sharply. "Tom's the right to choose his wife. He says it's not for me to have an opinion, a point on which he's probably right, and it's definitely not for you to have one." He appeared piqued by that. She shook her head and padded to the sink. "You do what you want about Clare's nephew's cousin or whoever it is. But your brother hasn't been home for six years. It'd be nice if you showed yourself."

"Well then," Liam began with finality, "he should have come alone."


	50. Chapter 50: May 1919, The Best

_Thanks so much as always for the reviews! _

* * *

><p><strong>May 1919<strong>

**Yorkshire**

Robert entered the bedroom and found his wife at her dressing table, O'Brien finishing her hair. He was barely through the door before the question, so hopefully asked, was out of her mouth. "Has the post come yet?"

"It has." Once again, he was tasked with disappointing her. "There was nothing."

"Oh." Her face fell as she retreated back into glumness, taking the room with her. "She _promised_ she'd write," she sniffled.

Robert almost snorted. _And are you surprised, _he wanted to say, _that she said what she needed to say to have her way, and didn't mean it? Now, she's off doing what she likes- that's all she cares about_. The house had been miserable all week. Edith and Mary barely spoke to each other at meals, Cora only wanted to talk about the mail as did the servants, who were practically salivating for details about what Branson and his daughter were up to Ireland. Every day she was away, Robert became more hardened to her and her decision- the selfishness of it, the repudiation of her home, the place to which he had devoted his whole life. The news had started to spread through the village and now every baker and candlestick maker was fabricating fantastic, tawdry tales about what might have transpired between Lord Grantham's youngest daughter and his driver that had led them to depart so abruptly.

"She'll write soon, milady," O'Brien soothed her, "if she hasn't already. Who knows? It could be lost in the post. It does happen."

"I doubt it," Robert refuted curtly. "You'll hear from her at some point. When she gets around to it."

Cora threw her husband a look in the mirror. "I know you're worried too, even if you won't admit it."

"It was Sybil's wish to no longer be part of this household or the life we are living here. I think we should honor that wish and say no more about it."

"Oh Robert," Cora sighed, reaching for her hand cream. "You always take things so personally. She didn't leave to spite you."

She shouldn't have said that, not with O'Brien present; and he became even more irritated if that were possible. He left, nearly slamming the door, which Cora ignored. "Must be hard for a father to lose his daughter," O'Brien said.

"The talk has started. That's why he's upset," Cora told her. "In the village. It'll be in London too, I imagine, by the time we get there next month. And I suppose there's chatter downstairs."

"Not at all, milady," O'Brien fibbed. "Mr. Carson wouldn't allow it."

"I imagine Carson is almost as affronted as Lord Grantham." Cora was quiet for a moment and then decided to pose the question she had wanted to ask since the shock reveal in the drawing room. "What do you think of Branson?"

"Mr. Branson? I can't say I know him."

"He worked here for six years, O'Brien- surely you've formed some opinion of him. And he's Irish as well."

"Don't really consider myself Irish anymore, milady. I've lived many more years here than there." O'Brien paused. She didn't like most of the staff, Mr. Branson included, but her desire to comfort her Ladyship far outweighed her reticence to compliment. "I don't think he's a bad sort." That was true. He wasn't a drunk, wasn't violent, didn't run around, as far as she'd seen. He was stupid, but so was the girl he took off with. _What sort of girl _aspires_ to a lower station? She belongs in an asylum._

"But-?" Cora prodded. "Go on, speak your mind."

"Oil and water can't be mixed. That's all I think."

"Well, I hope you're wrong, O'Brien." Cora accepted her gloves with a rueful look. "And I do hope it's not too hard for her."

"Lady Sybil's never shied from hard," O'Brien reminded her.

"No." Cora smiled for the first time that night. "No, she certainly hasn't." That's what she wanted to say whenever Robert started fulminating about "_the talk_." _Why don't people ever talk about how our daughter fought to learn a profession? How she lobbied for the convalescent home that helped so many officers?_ _How unafraid she was to sail off to a strange and hostile place to pursue her ambitions? _And love. She says she loves him, this... journalist_. Why don't they talk about what she was willing to brave for love? _"Who am I kidding? She's probably having the time of her life."

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<strong>

In truth, it _was_ hard. Sybil had never assumed otherwise, but as she sat at the little table in Tom's room at the end of her first week in Ireland, blank stationery before her, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being beaten. She had lost her temper with Mrs. Branson. Liam wanted nothing to do with her or his brother, so long as he was with her. The priest had been completely unmoved by their appeal to marry them. And now, she and Tom were fighting.

_Dearest Mama..._

She began with an apology for not writing sooner _this last week has been such a whirlwind_ but _don't worry_,_ everything is going wonderfully here, just wonderfully_.

She paused for a moment and then changed the period to an exclamation point: _just wonderfully! __I am still getting my bearings, but I've been studying the transportation map and I've figured out the basics like how to pay and how to transfer and the difference between local and express. After all, t_he key to a city is its transit system- if you can master that, you can go anywhere...__

That's what she and Tom had been discussing last Friday, her first full day in Ireland, as they walked to tram stop nearest to his mother's house to wait for morning express, which would shuttle them to the center of the city- _her_ city now- so she could take her first good look around. That had been a wonderful day, a day where all the expectations she had waiting in the gathering throng of tram passengers had been not just met, but exceeded.

She felt slightly self-conscious, as her clothes were far more extravagant than everyone else's, including those on the man she was with; these were housemaids and kitchen hands and laborers on their way to work, but everyone mostly kept their eyes and their thoughts to themselves. As the tram approached, a thin, older man with a jovial face called out to them. "Tommy Branson, is that you? What are you doing back here?"

"I'm back," Tom laughed as they boarded.

"For good?" The man sounded surprised.

"For now," Tom deflected with a glance in Sybil's direction, "and the foreseeable future."

"Ah, that's a tricksy phrase, Tommy!" the man replied, shooting a finger in the air. "Can't nobody see the future, not even for a day!" He leaned over to Sybil and tapped his temple. "He was always a clever lad, quick with his words- you got to keep an ear on him. Not half bad on a Gaelic pitch neither." The man sat back and sized up Tom. "Do you still box any?"

Now it was Sybil's turn to be surprised. "You box?" The man's eyebrows piqued at her accent, but he held his tongue.

"I did. Just once in awhile, for sport-"

"Last time I saw it, it was your brother and you knocked him out cold!"

"You knocked out Liam?" Sybil exclaimed. "But why?"

"Not Liam- Keiran. He was running his mouth..." Tom shook his head, embarrassed. "It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid."

"He was looking for a fight with you and you gave it to him! Laid him out flat!" He nodded at Sybil. "You needn't worry, Miss- no one will give you any trouble if you're with him."

"I'm not worried about any trouble," Sybil responded. "Should I be?"

"Of course not," Tom interjected, eager to change the subject. "So what are you going into town for?"

The man said he was going to buy fish straight off the dock because the neighborhood fishmonger's a crook and food prices are too high, the price of _everything_ is too high. "And it's only going to get worse because of the taxes." The journalist prompted him to explain that he supports a free Ireland of course, but Sinn Fein has no money and where's it going to come from? "_Taxes_," the man spit. "Don't mistake, I'd rather pay Irish than the English- no offense, Miss- but you can't draw blood from a stone! I don't know what the new government will do if we win. No offense again, Miss."

"None taken. I support Irish independence."

The man appeared impressed. "Good for you."

"What you mention is exactly the problem my brother Liam works on. He graduated university last year with a degree in economics and now he has a job in the _Príomh Aire's_ administration, focused on the financing of the new government and the Free State."

"Grand, that's grand. And what about you, Tommy? Did you go into politics as well?"

"I'm a reporter for the Irish Daily. I start on Monday."

"We're just on our way to see the offices now," Sybil added proudly.

"Lookie that," the man marveled. "The Branson boys- one working for the Dail, another for the Daily. Your mam must be proud!" The bell above dinged- their stop. The man wished them good luck with an order to "_Tell your brother not to raise taxes_!"

"That was informative," Tom remarked as they stepped off the tram into the rush of Sackville Street. "If he's worried about taxes, I bet he's not alone- and Ma's neighborhood is a Sinn Fein stronghold. I wonder if they know. I'll have to ask Liam."

"I knew your brother worked for Sinn Fein, but I didn't know exactly what he did. What an interesting job. I do hope I get to meet him soon."

"We'll arrange it. Soon," Tom promised.

"And if not, you'll lay him out?" Sybil teased, taking his arm.

Tom groaned. "I can't believe he brought that up. Keiran was- it was a special circumstance. I don't want you to think I'm that kind of man- an arsehole who has to posture with his fists."

"You think I've never thrown a punch? Just ask Edith!"

"Oh, don't worry- she warned me once that you wouldn't hesitate to give me a bruising if you thought I deserved it."

"I don't know about _that_," she laughed. "I just think asking for a fight is different than answering for one. And if you fight, you want to be the one left standing." She glanced up at him and grinned. "At least _I_ do."

"I consider myself duly warned," he grinned back. "Speaking of, look over there. It's the Post Office."

She knew the Post Office- or what was left of it- had been the launch site for the Rising. "Wow..." Tom had showed her a photo his relatives had sent him of the aftermath and the rubble, but seeing it immediately changed her perception of the siege. In the photo, it seemed smaller- more like a schoolboy-led skirmish, as the British newspapers said- but no, this had been an imposing, official government building. "It's so _big_."

"When the nationalists took the building, they flew a tricolor flag like in the French Revolution," he told her. "So if you see the tricolor here, in orange and green, that's where it comes from." Sybil noted the change in his language- they had had many conversations about the situation in Ireland back in England, but when Tom told the story back there it was, "_when_ _the rebels seized the building_"- and there were no boasts about common cause with the guillotine revolution. _Granny would be aghast_, but all Sybil could think was, "How exciting that must have been- to look out and see the nationalist flag flying for the first time, to know the fight for freedom had begun."

"I can't even imagine..." She heard both awe and wistfulness in his words and as after her Ripon scheme, she was struck by the sudden realization of her own selfishness and the enormous blind spot she had to it.

"I'm sorry you missed it," she said shamefaced. "And to waste time in the garage, worrying after me."

"I'm not." His response was automatic and she knew it was true. "Not at all." He raised her hand and kissed it. "Come on, let's show you the river."

They dawdled along the quays, stopping for some tea and popcorn, tossing the occasional kernel down to the ducks in the slate-colored water. "You know I mean it, right? I have no regrets."

"It was unfolding-"

"I have no regrets," he said again, shushing her with a kiss. "I have you."

"Thank you for what _you_ gave up." She turned out from him, listing over the edge of the low wall, her gaze fixed on the opposite shore. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say it."

"Hush. None of that. You're here, I'm here. And let's just agree that whatever it took to get to here, it was worth it. Alright?"

She opened her palm, sending a shower of white spheres onto the water. "Deal."

They made their way leisurely over to the newspaper office, with Tom pointing out which direction was north and what each neighborhood was called. "This will be my tram stop- Connolly Station. It's just around the corner."

"Connolly," she repeated, making a notation on her map. "_Tom's work_."

His new workplace was a ten-story brick building topped with a massive ironwork of the newspaper's masthead. "Very impressive," Sybil said, craning up. Tom nodded- and for the first time, experienced a tremor of intimidation. This was a serious building where serious, hard-boiled, battle-worn career journalists worked; he was a recently-unemployed chauffeur. He had never even_ been_ in an office building. What could he possibly bring to an operation like this?

He felt Sybil's hand on his arm. "You'll be great," she said close to his ear. "They're lucky to have you and if you forget that, just ask me- I'll be there to remind you every night when you come home."

They crossed the river and went south to St. Stephen's Green, where they admired the stained-glass windows at the Unitarian church and the wares in the store windows. There were British people here; she heard her own voice in the street din and her clothes no longer stood out. But Tom's did and she felt him clench at every double-take in their direction. She caught a glimpse of them in a reflection and was shocked and dismayed by how mismatched they appeared. She determined to buy some new clothes next week, but for now she could improve the situation with a change of venue. "Let's go to Dublin St. Patrick's," she suggested. "I'm feeling rather oppressed here!"

When they reached the boundary street, Tom halted her arm. "We can't just cross over, like it's any old street in any old place. This is a big moment. I feel like I should carry you across the threshold or something!"

"More fitting that I should carry _you_!"

"At the very least, we agree we should mark it. Tis a momentous occasion." He took her hands and announced with fanfare, "On this day, Sybil Crawley- infernal enemy of corsets, intrepid ally of pants, and longtime crusader for women rights- is entering the first and only place in the land represented by a democratically-elected woman!" Some people were staring, but they didn't care. He returned to his normal voice. "This is what you fought for, what you knocked on doors for-" Skepticism crept into her smile. "Alright, so it's not exactly and you still can't vote, but who cares about voting rights when you can just run the whole damn thing?"

"A very astute and ever to-the-point political analysis from the Irish Daily's Tom Branson," she complimented. "Well- shall we?"

He extended his hand. "After you- lead the way." And she did, to the sound of applause behind her. To her surprise, it was not just coming Tom but from a handful of strangers who had surmised... _what exactly_? Reaching the opposite sidewalk, she lifted her arms around his neck and whispered, "I have no idea why they're clapping."

He stole a peek behind him. "Those are very soft looks we're getting. Perhaps they think we've just gotten engaged in some bizarre, street-crossing ritual?"

"I better kiss you then," she determined in a low wicked voice as her lips dropped softly on his, in concert with some well-intentioned whistles.

"This could turn out to be another momentous occasion- our first kiss in our new neighborhood."

"It could. The Countess would approve."

They had a late lunch at a noisy cafe patronized by women in bright printed dresses, men hunched over notebooks, people with paint and pencil smudged on their fingers. A boisterous group of young women with leather schoolbags slung over their shoulders came in and convened at a table across the room. "Students at the university most likely," Tom ventured to Sybil's wide-eyed stare.

She nodded, absorbing it all. "I think this is a good place for us. Yes, this is definitely where we belong."

They finished the day walking through Phoenix Park, where Sybil pried stories out of him- he noticed there was an inverse relationship between his reluctance and her delight- about his reckless days before he came to England, before he'd fallen in love until at some point, he decided to show rather than tell in the shadow of a half-lit park bench. They were drunk on their day, a showroom tour of what their life could- _would_- be like: pictures to go with place names, tram schedules, "To Let" signs on the buildings in their neighborhood. It was real, tactile, after all this time. They didn't have to hide their relationship or care what anyone thought of it. And he was Tom Branson, a journalist, and she was Miss Sybil Crawley, a nurse from Yorkshire. That is how they wanted to be seen, that is how they saw each other, and now they were so. It was liberating, exhilarating! That and the absence of his mother had probably led them to kiss too hotly and heavily in public-or so they were scolded by a crotchety old man full of envy for their amour and youth and future.

"It must be strange," Tom remarked thoughtfully but without particular emotion as they exited the park, "to be on the other side of life, looking back." Sybil slipped her hand into his and they returned to his mother's house and, after a tolerable dinner, feigned sleep until Tom climbed the stairs and they resumed their activity with ardor.

"I do love you," she sighed happily hours later, as they left each other with mussed hair and rumpled nightwear. "And today was simply the best."

* * *

><p><em>Part I of II - I didn't intend for this to be its own chapter, but I had too much fun touring the city with them!<em>


	51. Chapter 51: May 1919 The Rest

_Thanks so much as always for the reviews! And thanks for the Merry Christmas Fellowes. Ugh._

_So this chapter's a bit of a tough one for Sybil- she keeps stepping on landmines she doesn't know are there._

* * *

><p>Saturday would have been just as nice but for the fact that it rained all day, soaking them to the bone as they shopped for a new work wardrobe for Tom and a wide umbrella for Sybil. "Welcome to Ireland," Tom remarked wryly as he paid the cashier and handed it to her far too late to be of any use. Her shoes were already ruined, but it was only upon arriving back at his mother's house as it was starting to get dark that she saw her stockings were blue-stained and ruined as well.<p>

"I should have worn the tan ones!" she called from the entryway as she shook out the umbrella and pulled off her sopping heels. "This whole lot's done for. Into the trash it goes!" Of course, his mother was shaking her head reprovingly- _she can't even dress herself properly, does she knows how much stockings cost, she better not expect to spend my son's money on new ones_- but Tom paid no attention because Sybil was standing barefoot in the parlor laughing, the hazy light from the lamp conjuring the copper highlights in her hair and he was in love all over again.

He barely uttered an excuse after she went upstairs to change- "_I should hang up these suits_"- before he was behind her, encircling her waist and tumbling onto the bed, the bottom of the damp dress gathered up in his hands as his elbows scraped her bare knees. At some point, she raised her hand between their lips and reminded him, "I have to change."

"Can I watch?"

"You wish."

He smiled at her, touched a finger to her crinkled nose. "It's nice to see you laugh again. You used to do it all the time. Then, for a long time, not so much." He eased off of her. "Though I suppose I was some part of that."

"True." She sat up with him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. "But you're all the reason for it now." She dropped a kiss at his temple, playing lightly with his hair. "It's getting long in the back."

"I know. I should have gone to the barber today."

"I can do it for you."

"Can you?"

"_Supper!_" His mother shouted from the kitchen. "_Tom! Supper!_"

"I should hope so!" Sybil replied. "I've wielded needles and scalpels, I hope I can handle a pair of scissors."

"Needles I knew, but scalpels? Really?"

"Not to cut into anyone, of course," she said with what sounded to him like regret. "Just to cut bandages and scrape wounds on occasion. Because the pus would build up and-"

He held up his hand. "All I need to know, thank you."

"I don't know why you're so squeamish."

"I don't know why you're not," he replied. "How did a Crawley girl get to be so comfortable with and, dare I say, _enthusiastic_ about blood and guts?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, pleased with the description. "But I miss it. I'm jealous that you're starting your job on Monday. I can't wait to be back to work."

"It won't be long now. Think about it- this time tomorrow, we could have our wedding date and then we can start all that other stuff, like finding a house for us and a hospital for you."

"An excellent plan, let the Lord and the Catholic Church allow!" She stood up. "Tell your mother I'll be down in a minute."

* * *

><p><strong>Sunday<strong>

They arrived with his mother early for Mass at St. Michael's Catholic church and found a seat in the front pews, in plain view of the priest. Tom went to confess himself so he could receive communion while Sybil knelt next to his mother, feigning prayer, and later followed both Bransons in the strange theatre of a Catholic service. Afterward, she and Tom donated to the poor box, lit an offering candle for his mother's parents, and shook hands with the other parishioners outside. Tom struck up a conversation with the church groundskeeper about the repairs to the bell tower, which he used as an icebreaker with the pastor. _So far, so good_.

During the hour-long meeting, they had been respectful and deferential to the priest, irresistibly charming in how they spoke of each other's character and how earnest they were in their wish to be bound together by God and the Church. Sybil told the priest that she had been both christened and confirmed and that her own family was very involved in their own, albeit Anglican, church.

But Father Fahey did not seem charmed as he stared sternly through wire-rimmed spectacles and listened. "All that is well and good, but none of it explains why _I_ should marry you, a non-practicing Catholic and a Protestant."

The answer was simple- Sybil's assimilation. Back in Yorkshire, they had decided to pursue a Catholic wedding to appease his mother. But even a few days here had convinced Tom, who had subsequently convinced Sybil, that it would be prudent for her to be tied to a local Irish institution. He didn't let on to her, but the comment on the tram the other day- "_no one will give you any trouble if you're with him_"- worried him. _What trouble_? And what if she _weren't_ with him? He didn't want to restrict her freedom, and the situation didn't seem dire- _yet_- but who knew what would erupt in the future? He'd give her an Irish name and an Dublin address, but a sacrament in a hardscrabble Catholic parish would provide incontrovertible proof against her _otherness, _just in case she ever needed to prove it_._ It would probably help in her job hunt as well.

But of course, they couldn't _say_ that to the priest, who wanted a reason rooted in piety, of which they had none. Fortunately, Mrs. Branson had prepared them for his counter-offer. "Perhaps if you were to join the parish for some months first-"

Sybil stiffened, but Tom was ahead of her. "That's not possible, Father. Sybil has no family in Ireland. And to be frank, I don't make enough to support two households for some months."

"No, of course not." The priest looked to Sybil. "I take it your family doesn't approve?"

"No, Father. Though I do hope my parents can be convinced to attend the wedding, whenever it's set."

"It's the first wedding of the children in her family," Tom added.

"You're the oldest then?"

"No, the youngest."

Something flashed in the priest's face- a recognition it seemed; of what, they couldn't say and God knows why, but it was the first thing they'd said that seemed to break through his stoicism. They held their breath as he deliberated. Finally, he said, with a neutrality that revealed nothing, "Come and see me next Sunday and I'll give you my answer."

On the walk home, Tom opined, "Not such a bad outcome, I think. Better that he asked us to wait than refusing us outright. I expected the worst, but I feel pretty optimistic now."

That was the complete opposite of how Sybil felt, but she didn't want to fight so she just smiled and said, "I do hope you're right, darling."

* * *

><p><strong>Monday<strong>

It was just past six, with a blinding almost-summer sun already rising behind the ever-present curtain of clouds that hung over Dublin. Sybil and Mrs. Branson were standing in their robes in the parlor as Tom slung his satchel over his shoulder. "Well? Do I pass for a reporter?"

"You look very smart," his mother nodded her approval.

"Yes. Very handsome," Sybil beamed.

"It's a fine suit, Tommy."

"I've got a girl with good taste." Sybil had commandeered the Saturday shopping trip with impressive results: a week's worth of suits, three ties, two new pairs of shoes and a new hat and bag- a sharp new wardrobe to go with his rapidly depleting savings.

"I'll get your lunch."

His mother excused herself with a pointed _this is your job_ look at Sybil, which she either didn't comprehend or didn't care. "Are you nervous?" she asked when they were alone.

"Excited more than nervous," he told her. "But I want to do well. I think I can, if I work hard."

"You always have." Sybil smoothed his tie, neatly tucked into his vest. "Our very first conversation, you told me you wouldn't always be a chauffeur. And look at you now."

"I didn't think I'd see the day with you. And in your dressing gown in my mother's parlor, no less."

She reached up and kissed him softly. "I'm so proud. You should be proud."

He didn't know about _proud_, but he certainly did find it unbelievable. He vividly remembered that conversation in the car that day- and the thoughts in his mind that followed. _We have shared interests. It was so easy to talk to her. Her eyes are so blue..._ _God, she was just a girl then!_ Now she was a betrothed woman, a professional nurse and an expatriate, fixing him up and sending him off to work. And him. He chuckled. _What a cocky arse I was_, thinking himself such a man of the world at 22- when in fact, he knew nothing about anything that mattered. _But that was then_. "You know, I spent my whole allotment of free time that week collecting those pamphlets to give to you. And I'm pretty sure my palms were sweating when I did it."

"I'll never tell," she whispered as his mother re-entered the room. "Have a wonderful day,"- she kissed him again- "and hurry home and tell me all about it."

* * *

><p>In her head, the plan was perfect. She would take the tram into the city center, to the fashionable block with the high-end shops they had walked by yesterday. She would buy the new silver fountain pen she had seen in the window, a chocolate cake from the French bakery and a bottle of wine. She would come home and cook dinner for the three of them- <em>fish would be nice<em>, she thought- and would have the table set, the wine uncorked, waiting in a freshly-pressed dress for Tom to walk through the door.

Of course, exactly none of it went as she had planned.

For starters, she burned dinner- and in racing to pull the smoking pan out of the oven, she had knocked over the iron, searing a nasty brown triangle onto a freshly-laundered sheet. Sybil insisted on helping with the household chores and impressed upon the skeptical Mrs. Branson that she had ironed a thousand sheets on the hospital night shift and made up three times as many beds. And Mrs. Branson had- reluctantly- relented and now Sybil had screwed up.

_And frankly_,_ it's her fault, _Sybil stewed, staring down the blackened disaster on the stove. She had intended to make fish and had asked Mrs. Branson for directions to the fish market, but Mrs. Branson had failed to tell her it was closed on Mondays. "You didn't ask," she said mildly when Sybil returned empty-handed. "I forgot, but I might have remembered if you had asked."

Sybil tried to swallow her irritation and keep focused on the task at hand. "It's late now. Do you have any ideas on what I can make in the short time before Tom comes home?" Mrs. Branson suggested a meat pie, but then had been as vague as possible with the directions, even though she knew full-well Sybil had never made a meat pie and had no earthly idea how to make a meat pie. And when it was time to start cooking, Mrs. Branson claimed an errand and left.

She returned an hour later to find Sybil close to frustrated tears in front of the stove. "Good Lord, what have you done?" Mrs. Branson croaked as she came into the smoky kitchen. Sybil crossed her arms and stepped aside silently; the mess on the counter and the charred pie spoke for itself. Mrs. Branson poked into the crust- the meat was still bleeding. "Oh, the hell- you can't serve this, you'll give us all worms!"

"I'm not planning on serving it. _Obviously_."

"You put the meat in raw? Did you really think it would take the same time to cook as the peas?" she asked, incredulous. "You have to cut it smaller or cook it first separately."

"Thank you." Sybil grabbed the pan and started scraping the remains into the trash. "That is so helpful _now."_

What she did not know, could not have known, was that there was no action more offensive to Irish people of Mrs. Branson's station and age than the wasting of food. "_The Almighty brought the blight, but the English brought the famine" _was an ironclad truth to her parents, whose families had starved while the fruits of their soil were shipped across the sea to Lady Sybil's ancestors. "If you didn't know _how_ to do it, you shouldn't have done it at all!" she barked at her. "Now look at this- a right mess and half a week's groceries thrown out. What the matter with you?"

"I _asked_ for your help."

"And if you hadn't spent half the day on _nonsense_... Tom's not even worked a full day yet and you're running around buying pastry cakes and presents!"

"It was_ my_ money."

"It better be," the older woman muttered. "It's bloody ridiculous."

Sybil was close her breaking point. All she wanted to do was celebrate Tom's achievement and all Mrs. Branson had done was obstruct her in that effort. "This is a big day for Tom and I'll not let you ruin it!"

"_Me_ ruin it?" Mrs. Branson whipped around to face her._ "You_ wanted a big to-do and_ you_ are the one who can't pull it off, despite the fact that all it requires are a few basic tasks that any woman and circus monkey should be able to complete!"

Sybil took a look around the kitchen- dirty bowls and pans and flour spilled on the counter- and knew she should clean it up but _to hell with it_. "Fine. We'll eat out- the _two_ of us."

She threw down the dishrag and stormed out.

* * *

><p>"What are you doing here?" Tom cried, surprised but clearly ecstatic to find Sybil waiting on the sidewalk outside the newspaper office that night.<p>

She forced her brightest smile. "I caught the 5:21 express. I'm here to take you out to dinner to celebrate. Come on, let's go."

They had a hearty meal at a nearby pub full of journalists, where Tom relayed that all he had learned on his first day was the layout of the office. He wiped his mouth and set his napkin down. "So," he started, "want to tell me what happened at home?"

Sybil pursed her lips. "How did you know?"

"I can tell when you're agitated."

"I have to apologize to your mother." It was all she could do to not roll her eyes at the prospect.

"I'm sure you were provoked."

"She compared me to a circus monkey." Tom snorted. "And not in a favorable way."

"Is there a favorable way?" he wondered. The waiter came with the bill and Tom studied it. "She's been very hard on you. I'll have a talk with her."

"Please don't." He glanced up. "Let me handle it."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite." Tom reached for his wallet with a shake of his head. "What's the matter?"

"I never had the time to spend money back in England, " he told her. "I forgot how fast it goes."

"Don't worry about dinner. We'll take it out of the money Papa gave us."

"Gave _you,_" he corrected her. But they left before she could ask about it.

She brought it up again on the tram. "Let me know when you want to go to the bank. I can meet you at your work- the tram was very easy- and we can deposit the check from Papa."

"Shhh."

Sybil did not think she was talking loudly, but nonetheless lowered her voice. "I'll probably have to be there to sign it over to you." The tram pulled up to their stop and they disembarked with a dozen weary workers. "What time does the bank open?"

He shrugged and looked around uneasily. "I don't know."

"It'd be convenient if there was a bank near the newspaper-"

"Can we not talk about this now, please?" he snapped. "I really don't think the middle of the street is an appropriate place to discuss money."

She was taken aback by his harsh tone. "I never said anything about money. I _wouldn't_ have," she defended quietly. "I only mentioned the bank-"

"And who do you think uses banks?" he fairly shouted in a whisper. "You think people working for pittance keep bank accounts? Didn't you notice how people were staring?" _Were they_? She hadn't noticed. "Why don't you just ask someone to rob you? You've got to_ think_ a little, Sybil- think about where you are, who's around you. You're not in the country anymore."

"You've made your point, Tom."

"I'm sorry," he said after a minute of estranged silence, but she wasn't in the mood to hear it. All she wanted was to go to bed and put an end to this day in which she apparently could do nothing right. "I don't get paid until Friday, so we don't have to talk about it until then." He reached for her hand. "Thank you for dinner. It was very sweet."

"Yes, it was great. Just great," she said, taking her hand away.

* * *

><p><strong>Friday<strong>

A week after her nearly-perfect first day in Ireland, Sybil awoke sweaty in a wickedly stuffy room. It was the start of a heat wave in Dublin, nearly thirty degrees Celsius outside and baking inside the close, poorly ventilated Branson home. She dressed and went downstairs to see Tom off to work, only to find he had already left. She had slept badly on account of the temperature and a week in an uncomfortable bed had left her shoulders knotted and tense. "Good morning."

"You missed Tom," Mrs. Branson informed her severely- an indictment, as if she had been taking breakfast in bed while he was up at the crack of dawn to work. "Don't worry, I made him a lunch."

_I'm not worried_, she wanted to say. _He's twenty-seven years old. I'm quite certain he won't starve. _But she ignored the slight and went to make herself a cup of tea.

This is basically how the week had been. Sybil had offered an apology to Mrs. Branson that she did not believe she deserved and had replaced the sheet set and the ingredients she had used for which Mrs. Branson had extended a terse thank-you. And so, they were restored to pretty much the same place they had been before the blow-up in the kitchen.

As for Tom, they had made up that night when he came to her room and he admitted he had probably overreacted, but he was just alarmed- this is the city, and in places a poor and dangerous city, and she has to be circumspect when she's out and about, especially because of who she is. She knew both his concern and his contrition were sincere and so she accepted the apology and decided not to broach the issue of _your father's money_, which was still an issue and which had set off the whole fight in the first place. She could look forward to that discussion tonight.

For now, she sat down at the kitchen table, where she continued to draft her letter of inquiry for a nursing position. At some point, Mrs. Branson announced she was going out and left Sybil alone in the sweltering house. By noon, Sybil's blouse was sticking to her and she abandoned her work and went upstairs with a bowl of cool water and a washcloth. She was in front of the mirror on the bureau, patting down the back of her neck when she heard a terrible racket downstairs and suddenly, the door flew open.

There stood a taller, skinnier, darker-haired version of Tom, covered in rotten egg.

"You're Liam!" she exclaimed. He clearly had not expected to find her here and made no reply. At first, she thought him dumbstruck, but it quickly became apparent that he was appraising her. She had not realized it because, well, people simply didn't do that to the Crawleys; that was _their_ prerogative. No matter though. It was his house and she could be friendly. "I'm Sybil-"

"I know who you are," he stopped her shortly.

They continued to stare at each other, until Sybil could not longer stand the stench emanating from his clothes. "You have egg all over your suit."

"You're an observant one. I would never have known." His expression was cold, but she was transfixed by his eyes, so exactly like Tom's- dark blue and kinetic, full of a million ideas. She couldn't help but like him, despite the fact that he quite surely did not return the sentiment.

"Do you want some of Tom's clothes?"

"No. I have my own. I'll get them, if you get out of the way."

"Oh. Sorry." He went to the bureau as she crossed the room and sat down on the bed. _ He's much thinner than Tom a__nd he moves oddly- jerks almost, but not in an unsure way_. She smiled. _Confidence must be a Branson trait_. "I put some of my things in the drawers. I didn't realize it was your room. I thought it was Tom's."

"It's his room _and_ my room. Where did you think I slept- the east wing? The _servants' quarters_?"

"Where do you sleep?"

"Not my room, obviously, on account of you."

"You're very rude." She said it without offense; it was an indisputable judgment of the last five or so minutes.

She watched as Liam opened yet _another_ drawer of women's blouses. "Jesus Christ! Where are my clothes? I've got bloody egg all over me!"

An angry yellow yolk was, at present, sliding down the back of his suit jacket and Sybil bit back a giggle. Today was not the day for him to try and make _her_ feel insecure. "How did you come to have egg all over you?"

"Redmonites," Liam grumbled.

"What's a Redmonite?"

"This morning, it was a group of very short-sighted women whose men fought your war for your king and who are now opposed to Irish independence because Sinn Fein might not pay their pensions. We were holding an event in the neighborhood and they ambushed us."

"Will they?"

"Will they what?" He had unearthed some of his clothes in the bottom drawer and was sorting through for an acceptable shirt.

"Will Sinn Fein pay their pensions?"

He looked up. "That's not the point."

"It's the point for them," she countered. "It's their income."

"You sound as ignorant as they do," he derided, shrugging off his soiled jacket.

"It's not ignorant," Sybil rebutted. "Who would ever support a politician who wanted to do away with her income?" She started to laugh. "I used to canvas. I can't even imagine knocking on someone's door with that ask- 'Good afternoon, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'd like a moment to speak to you about Mr. So-and-So who'd like to abolish your income. But I know you'll like the rest of his platform.' It's mad!" Liam started to unbutton his shirt and Sybil jumped up. _He's rude, with no sense of politics, and no sense of decorum either_. "If you want to change, I'll leave," she said pointedly.

"I couldn't care less what you do." He stripped off his shirt and at that point, there was no modesty to preserve, so Sybil remained in the room. "And what do _you_ know about income?" She started to answer that she had worked, but he steamrolled over her words; apparently, he meant the direct question rhetorically. "I've no interest in a lecture on income insecurity from the likes of you. It's despicable that any Irish would accept the oppression of their country for sixty pounds a year for themselves." He balled up his ruined clothes and headed for the door. "And if they're so worried about money, they shouldn't be wasting fecking eggs."

"They didn't _waste_ them," Sybil couldn't resist refuting. "They were rotten."

He clambered down the stairs. "Wait!" she called after him. "When will you be back? Tom wants to see you."

"I'll see him when I see him."

Sybil didn't care that Liam disliked her, but she was riled and offended by his indifference to Tom. "He's been waiting," she scolded.

Liam stopped, then turned and climbed back up a few steps so he could see her face. "Well, you've got him trained well for that, haven't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"I expected you to be _beautiful_- like, really, unnaturally beautiful. Or brilliant, maybe. But you're nothing special. And all that shyte you put him through, for all those years? All the time he wasted? I wouldn't have waited five minutes."

* * *

><p>That was this afternoon.<p>

_Oh yes, Mama... everything is going wonderfully here, just wonderfully!_

_Wonderfully, indeed... _

She set her pen down and started to cry.


	52. Chapter 52: Howth

_Thanks so much as ever for the reviews!_

_Just a quick note about this chapter: all the Ireland scenes take place on the same day, Sunday, a week after Tom and Sybil arrive. The scenes in England take place over the course of the next three weeks. _

_For the unspoiled, Larry Grey is a character in episode 3x01._

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, Sunday <strong>

They decided that on Sunday afternoon, for better or worse, they would take the train to Howth on the coast for some fresh air and scenery. They'd pack sandwiches for lunch, a blanket to sit on, a book each to read and spend a few hours away from his mother and the grind of the city. And if the priest refused their request to marry them, they could vent their frustration in the sweat and exertion of a hike and make an alternative plan.

As it happened, that was not necessary.

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, t<strong>**he following week**

For the first time since Sybil's departure, the house was cheerful when Robert came down for dinner; he heard Edith and Mary's voices before he reached the parlor. They were leaving for London tomorrow- all except Cora, who was not yet well enough to travel, but who believed it would be beneficial for the rest of her family to escape the house for awhile and get some distance from recent events. Robert entered the room and found his oldest daughters with their heads together- he couldn't recall the last time he had seen that. "Evening, girls." Their conversation stopped, suspiciously. He crossed to the sideboard to fix himself a drink, finding the carpet pleasantly warmed by the sun bowing through the window. "You both seem in fine spirits. Are you looking forward to London?"

"We've had a letter from Sybil!" Edith blurted out. Robert circled the snifter too close and recoiled from the sting of the liquor. He said nothing.

"She's fixed a date, Papa," Mary continued, careful not to mention the wedding or marriage or him. "The 21st of June."

"We'll still be away."

Edith's mouth dropped at their father's intimation- _we've already made plans, so we will have to decline_- but as ever, Mary was resolute. "Yes, Papa. We will have to arrange our travel from London accordingly."

Edith turned her attention back to Mary. "I wonder if there's a boat from Southampton. Do you think it might make more sense to go south and leave from there than to come back up to Yorkshire?"

"I'm not sure," Mary replied, with an eye on her father- back turned to them, shoulders and spine stiffened, a false show of fortitude. _He won't show it because he never would_. "But it's worth considering."

* * *

><p>They discussed it for the entirety of the short train ride north, but came to no conclusion as to why the priest had changed his attitude towards them. "<em>June 21st - that's a Saturday- will that do for you<em>?" Dumbfounded, they had nodded. He had waved off the reading of the banns- "_It would be perfunctory, given that you've both been living these past years in England. And I think it prudent, given Miss Crawley's situation,_" which they had shared with him during their first meeting. He merely asked Sybil to confirm that she was not already wed to another and she confirmed she was not. He then asked Tom, with an air of mild apology, if he was aware of the intrinsic danger of marriage to a Protestant- the threat to his soul, the influence on his children- and was he prepared to enter into such a union? He confirmed that he was. "_Fine," the priest had concluded. "Saturday, the 21st of June, at four o'clock. Don't be late._" He even almost smiled at them.

His mother was caught off guard by the outcome, but had the grace to put on a good face and congratulate them as they changed into their walking boots, packed a rucksack and headed off for Howth.

* * *

><p><strong>London, <strong>**June 1919**

The first invitation- a party in Belgravia- proved there would be no escape from recent events. Rumors were moving like snakes through the revelers, hissed in the corners, hiding among tall glasses and idle chatter, though this truth was still camouflaged in both sincere and insincere salutations offered to the Crawleys when they arrived.

But from the first question about Cora's absence and Mary's scripted response ("_Thank you, my mother is recovering at home and my sister has stayed behind with her_"), Robert became aware that something was amiss. A nosy woman whose name he forgot lifted her eyebrows and grinned- _mugged_ really, that's what it felt like, as Robert knew then his chance to enjoy the evening, to not be a father of pity or ridicule had been stolen.

* * *

><p><strong>Howth<strong>

They walked to the end of a long, narrow peninsula, into the mist and ignoring the pregnant clouds for, as Sybil had quickly come to realize in Ireland, _if we wait on the rain, we'd never do anything_! They made their camp on a gentle slope that spread down to the ocean. It appeared the other hikers had turned back on account of the impending storm, for they were completely alone.

They had their lunch and broadly sketched the details of their wedding- a little dinner and a toast in the back room of a pub nearby and, anticipating that the Earl and Countess of Grantham would refuse to attend such a reception, perhaps a breakfast with them at their hotel the following morning.

"We could try to think of a more suitable affair for them," Tom proposed, having no idea what that would be.

"No, no," Sybil insisted. "Nothing we do will please them. And I only care that they attend the ceremony. Perhaps then..."

"... they might understand?"

She turned her head and looked into the distance. "Perhaps."

* * *

><p>Robert sought refuge in the billiards room. "I'm glad to hear Cora's recovering well," his opponent and old friend said. "And good of Sybil to stay with her mother."<p>

Mary had insisted on the alibi, Robert was adamant that he would not abet Sybil's behavior; he would not lie. Instead, he deflected, "Your family is well I hope?"

"Better than well." The man lowered his cue and puffed up with paternal pride. "Annie's engaged." _Annie_, born the same month as Sybil, _who used to come riding on the weekends before the war; polite and pretty enough._ "But it's not been announced yet, so please you don't let Sybil hear it from you before Annie's able to write her!" Robert scoffed. _He_ didn't know at what address Sybil was presently living and he highly doubted her friends from the old days did. He briefly wondered if she had told anyone, had tried to hold on to any part of her former life.

"He's a war hero. Survived unscathed though, thank God." _Unscathed- what a word._ "And Annie is so looking forward to a grand affair for the wedding." The proud papa grew pensive. "The girls suffered too- the war took their youth. Now, they'll go right into the responsibilities of marriage, managing a house. Annie now, but Sybil soon enough, I'm sure," he predicted with a smile.

Robert remembered encountering the girls around the estate- he could see it now, as clearly as he had seven, ten years ago- drinking lemonade or on a walk, and being struck by how superior his child was to her peers. _Sybil_, with her enviable dark curls, endless ideas and energy and unfettered optimism; Sybil who was the best rider, who always had a thoughtful comment to contribute, who lit up every room she entered. He remembered thinking he'd have his work cut out for him in London, evaluating these young men for one who was worthy-_ and what a lucky gent he'll be, _the man who would win her companionship for life.

"Excuse me," Robert sighed.

* * *

><p>A cool wind, a Sunday afternoon, just them two, the waves lapping on all sides. The scene was an imperative for lovers and they acceded, laid down on the blanket, sheltered in the fog draped low over the footpath with only the blue of the water breaking through. And soon enough, one imperative quickened another.<p>

Sybil, who was not sure how these situations were to be resolved now, simply asked, "Do you want to?"

_Yes_. _Ridiculous question_. "Nah." Lest his reluctance be misunderstood as rejection, he clarified, "I mean, we probably shouldn't."

"There's no one around." It was more an observation than invitation. "And you have done, in the park. You told me so when we went there."

"I think you pried it out of me." His mouth teased a smile. "And it was dark."

"And now it's white." Truly, they couldn't even see the road they'd come in on.

"Regardless, it wasn't the middle of the afternoon." He was not sure how he had come to argue the defensive position. But in his life, these Edenic excursions had been born from a lack of options, not romantic notions, and it did have the taint of poor urchin to him. "I was a kid and that's what kids I knew did."

"And it wasn't me."

"It was just different."

"But I don't want to be different." He had never heard so much in one word and it was a novel, the story of her life. "Really I don't."

He had not fully understood her battle with difference until now, that it was not just to try and tend her own traits in hostile soil or fend against other's prejudices; it was, at heart, an inability to be congruous, to be as one with one's world. He was always doing battle with the world, for one reason of another, but he couldn't say he had ever felt that. It must be wearing, like a chronic disease, and perhaps he had never noticed because she carried it well and in secret, did not solicit sympathy, and for those reasons it sprung.

"Truth be told, it's fairly awkward and much less elegant than you imagine, with all the clothes in the way-"

"You don't know what I imagine," she interrupted, one shoulder lifting in a show of feminine superciliousness. "You don't."

He regarded her from his hand and she stared back- unblinking, unabashed- as he considered his reply and a compromise. "Is that a dare?"

* * *

><p>He heard the sniggering still, hours after he'd left the university club for this stupid party he had not intended to be at, but was now forced to attend because she would be here. Surely, she would be here.<p>

"_Have you heard the news, Larry? About your future wife?_"

"_He hasn't- look at his face_!"

"_We regret to inform you, but the would-be Mrs. Grey has been up to no good!_"

She would be here, standing with her sisters or her parents or her girlfriends or in mixed company, as she always was, and never with anyone else. She wasn't like that, one of those girls who wanted to _go__ admire the garden__. _She was never in the garden, or in the spandrel, or alone with a man who was keen on her except sometimes with him because he was, as she put it, _practically family_._  
><em>

"_What it is you use to say, when we asked why she never asked you to call on her? _'She's just shy.'"

"'A late bloomer!'"

"_'_It's not as if she favors someone else!'"

"_Perhaps we'd just forgotten how to recognize _virtue_ in a young woman_."

"_Perhaps we did_,"_ a cruel classmate whom he had never liked taunted._ "_We should have been looking for it on the side of the road- and we would have found it rutting with the driver_!" For a moment, the laughter stopped and the taunter was informed he had taken it too far. "_Why? Oh, come on. Everybody knows there's only one reason women ever go below stairs._"

He had seen her father and her sisters and her friends. He had searched in the garden and under the stairs and on the elbows of the men he knew harbored similar aims. In the end, he found only the truth.

She was not here.

* * *

><p>The lush, verdant landscape was deceptive; the grass was tough, the blades punched at his clothes, sneaking to scratch his skin where the shirt had pulled up at his hip, one hip and one elbow, at her side. But he ignored it for the smoothness of her palms against his cheeks, the cream vanished into them providing a grace note of powder and rose petals and beauty, and all was cool and still but for her.<p>

"Oh- oh, Tom."

He half-expected to be shaken awake, to find himself back in the Renault, waiting on some interminable errand in Ripon, or in the cottage wondering if change would ever come, and this was all a dream: her pleas- "_please"_- his name, an incantation, her heartbeat twisting and gathering in his hand and then-

Her mouth was parted, bewildered, and he could not resist kissing at it. Her forehead still wore a crease of confusion from the unknown of a moment ago, an artifact now in that mind which always hummed with _such wild ideas- _none of which were that he was quite sure_._ He pressed his lips to it and laughed.

"So how does it feel to be a woman of the world, Miss Crawley?"

* * *

><p>Edith wandered unaccompanied into the room and Larry made a beeline for her. Mary was here, but Mary would never tell. Edith would spill. Edith would <em>understand<em>. "Is it true?"

"Hello to you too, Larry," she said as she steadied the drink he had almost knocked over. "Nice to see you."

"Where's Sybil?"

Edith pretended that his most recurrent question was his only one and as she always did, she rolled her eyes and tried to head him off. "Still, Larry?"

"She's not here," he accused.

"No. Sybil is not here."

"So it _is_ true?"

Edith took a sip before she answered, words judicious but tone severe. "I'm not really sure what you're asking me to verify. And I'd ask you don't mention it again. Matthew's just lost his fiance and my mother is still recovering. It's hard enough for my family right now without wild rumors."

* * *

><p>"Stay close a moment," she said when he started to rise.<p>

"Here, come with me." He drew them both up into a sitting position, supported by a low rock at the base of the blanket, where he had put her hairpins. Her head reclined against his shoulder and he played with her hair and listened to the ocean and the air and relished that all there was to think on was the banality of the earth's movements at the end of an afternoon and that for once, he actually had the wherewithal to appreciate that.

"Will it be like that, when we-?"

"With a bit of practice."

She closed her eyes as her hand found his.

* * *

><p>"Was that Edith Crawley just now?" Larry mustered a perturbed nod for an acquaintance of his mother. "I heard they had the flu at their house. Terrible about her cousin."<p>

"Yes, terrible," he murmured, as inspiration struck. "Terrible about _all_ of it." That was all the bait required to reel in the interest of someone who barely knew the Crawleys, who probably didn't even know there was another absent daughter until he alluded to _the business with Sybil_. "It's hard to even talk about. My family are great friends with the Crawleys. Of course, her poor parents can't bear to speak of it. But it appears it might be worse than even we know."

Her eyes widened. "Worse than eloping with the driver?"

"It's been said-now, I don't know if it's _true _and I certainly _pray_ that it isn't_-_"

"_Certainly_."

"Well, Sybil had volunteered as a nurse at the officers' hospital-" He shook his head. "It is a wicked world, especially for an innocent. It's said she fell into some trouble there and could not say the father."

"No! An officer?"

"I don't know. Someone at the hospital."

"Doesn't sound like some_one_."

"I don't know if there was more than one or if the father just wasn't free to be named. But apparently, on the ride home one night she confessed the whole wretched affair to the chauffeur. It turns out, he had debts back in Ireland, so they concocted this elopement scheme: she'd be made honest and be out of the country before the baby was born and he'd get whatever pitiable amount of money her father provides her."

"Oh, for shame!"

"Of course, I don't know how much truth there is to it- I hope none, of course. We'd do well not to speak of it anymore. Gossip can be so vicious." He excused himself to refresh his drink, satisfied that his work was done. It was confirmed when he heard her voice and Sybil's name as he left the room.

_She is not here, _he thought. _And she will never come here again._

* * *

><p>There were dandelions sprouting around, both maize and white, and Tom plucked a downy one. "Make a wish," Sybil instructed.<p>

"No need." He smiled and held it out to her. "Blow."

She did, scattering the seeds on a whisper, and smiled back. "I made one for us both."

He picked another, a leonine one, and twirled it as they talked. "So now that you've been in Dublin two weeks, are you a creature of the city or of nature?"

"I like the city," she replied, just now considering the distinction. "I like how fast people walk. I like that they have places to go. I feel at home there. But _this_ is magical- to lie back among the clouds, above the ocean, in a bed of wildflowers."

"I think they're weeds," he chuckled.

"So what? They're still pretty, aren't they?" He nodded. "Who decided what's a flower and what's a weed anyway?"

"Are dandelions to be your next cause then?"

"Maybe. They've been discriminated against for far too long. Someone ought to stick up for them." She turned her face to him. "Can I count on your support?"

He tucked the stem behind her ear, nesting its leaves on two curls. "Always, love."

* * *

><p>"Go up to bed," Mary directed her sister and for once, Edith complied. Mary was left alone in the white foyer cloaked in shadows. Grantham House in London was cold and austere in the best of times and the these were far from those. She summoned her reserves and went to find her father in the study.<p>

He had not spoken a word since they abruptly left the party. He was silent in the motor, silent in the way that made Edith's stomach ache and Mary brace for change. Because something had changed- for him, for Sybil, for their family- on account of that crafty serpent and people's infernal need for knowledge. "_Do you know..._"

Yes, the Bates situation was a scandal, but Bates was a servant. Bates was not his flesh and blood, Bates had not been reared under his influence, Bates was not _his daughter_...

"People will say the most stupid things!" Mary fumed. "You know that's not Sybil," she tried to convince him. "You know Sybil would never-"

"No, I don't know." And he didn't. He might have known once, a long time ago, before Branson, before Ripon, before she started acting like a caged animal, untamed and unpredictable. "Frankly, I'd think her capable of anything."

* * *

><p>"What about you?" Sybil asked as they packed up to leave.<p>

"What about me?"

"The city or nature?"

"I'd say the city, but do you know what's strange? Working at a desk all week. I haven't ever had an indoors job. I'm used to roaming about. Though I'm not sure that classifies as nature."

"So your time in fair Yorkshire didn't change you?"

"I would never say that," he grinned over the rucksack. "Your flower's falling out." He reached for it, but she pulled back.

"No, don't." She removed it gingerly and regarded it in her hand. "I'll press it. She placed it into her book and began to re-pin her bun. "Mama got so mad at Mary once for putting flowers in her hair."

"Why's that?"

"I think she thought it too bold." Then she added with a laugh, as they started for home, "She didn't care when I wore them though. She must not have thought me very bold."

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, Mid-June <strong>

Carson entered the parlor with an envelope on a silver tray, stopping in front of the chair where Mary was sitting. "Pardon me, my Lady, but a letter's come for you."

Mary accepted it and shortly confirmed to the expectant audience that it had indeed come, as the spate of letters that week, from Ireland.

Her mother looked anxious. "What does it say?"

"It's only one line," Mary relayed, as her hands dropped to her lap. "An addendum really. She wants us to be prepared for when we see her."

"Prepared for what?" her father demanded.

Mary tried to sigh, to feign exasperation, but she could not stop the corner of her mouth from curling. "Better cover your ears, Papa," she warned. "She's cut off all her hair."


	53. Chapter 53: The Reporter, Part I

_Thanks so much as always for the reviews! Note about the Catholic wedding in comments._

_Here's a little of journalist Tom. I have him as a local reporter in a mainstream newspaper and we know he winds up as an underpaid writer at a rebel publication- this is the start of that journey. _

__This chapter is long and two parts (hope to have part two up this wknd), but I think it's important to the story. _We know Tom, Sybil, and Liam are all political, but I wanted to explore *how* they each approach politics. I have always found it interesting that in canon, Sybil has more real, actual political experience (canvassing) than Tom- but I think that inexperience fits Tom's idealistic and academic view of the world. He's never seen a revolution up close, he's never fought in a war or been around people who have, and while he is a supporter of Irish independence, he was a supporter who could simultaneously and congenially live on a British Lord's estate and serve his family and accept his money and wait (forever) for his daughter instead of going to fight in Ireland. That's to take nothing away from Tom- but Tom doesn't become radicalized until he's back in Ireland. So that's a journey he has to take. _

_FYI, the business tax discussed in this chapter was a real failed proposal from Sinn Fein._

* * *

><p>On Monday, Tom became a published journalist, 150 words about a sinkhole on a northside street that appeared in the bottom left corner of page thirteen. The sinkhole of record was not notable in size or scope. It didn't affect the neighborhood; there was no traffic to disrupt and it wasn't so deep that there was a threat of a child falling in. Its worst offense would have been aesthetic, but for the fact that it was wedged between two dilapidated tenements. Tom had tried to interview more than two dozen people in the neighborhood- only half of whom had noticed it and none of whom cared. <em>Why should they<em>? he had thought. _Why should anyone_? It wasn't a story, but the local assignment editor, who lived in a part of town where people could afford to be concerned about beautification and the undercarriages of their cars, currently had a broken sidewalk and thus, Tom was sent to the sinkhole under the auspice of "_exposing municipal failures and the outrage of residents._" Having found no outrage, except for what was directed at him for bothering people on the street, he had described its dimensions and character at length, saving room at the end for just one "resident reaction" quote from an amenable old man in a plaid cap who shrugged and told him, "Gives the place character."

That day, as she had every day since Tom had started work at the paper, Sybil went twice to the newsstand (once in the morning, once in the evening) to buy an _Irish Daily_. On Monday night, she bought twenty. "Are you mad?" he questioned, upon finding them proudly stacked on the coffee table. "Twenty copies? For what?"

"To give to people, of course! Your brothers and my sisters and my parents and my grandmother in New York-"

"No, no- Syb, no. Please don't," he groaned. "It's embarrassing. I wrote a few sentences about a hole in the road. You can't send _that_ to Lord Grantham."

"Why not? It's not like _he_'s ever been published in the newspaper."

Tom managed to convince her to wait until he had a few more clippings, although Sybil didn't understand his reticence to share; she had been staring at it for more than an hour and it was just as incredible to her as when she first saw it:

**Tom Branson, **_**Reporter**_

His name in print, right there on the page- bold, black typeset that had smudged on her thumb. "I think you were right about the byline," she said and he smiled. In their discussions of what name he might use-_ T. Branson, Thomas Branson, Thomas M. Branson- _she always referred to it as a _byline_. Such professional terms were merit badges to Sybil; everybody had a _name_, but only an elite few had a _byline_. "Tom Branson. It got you this far, why change it now?" Giving him a satisfied nudge, she added, "Besides, what's the point of being published if people you know don't know it's you?" Sybil had no problem showing off success. He sometimes thought she would make a great capitalist.

That night, Sybil once again attempted to make a meat pie, but this time Tom helped her, showing her how to pace the cook-times so that nothing burned and nothing remained raw. _Ridiculous_, Mrs. Branson fumed for the umpteenth time as she mended clothes in parlor, hearing their bell-like voices mingle with the metallic sounds of pans to stove. _Though it is nice to have some laughter around here_, she thought in spite of herself. And that night, she had to admit that dinner was "very good- and _cooked _too!" as Lady Sybil sat back with a self-satisfied smile and her son fibbed, "Sybil did it. All I did was stand around and distract her."

After the dishes were done, Sybil and Tom went for a walk around the neighborhood, as Tom mulled future story ideas. "I don't want to be writing dog-bites-man stories forever."

She threw him a look. "_Forever_ is a bit dramatic, I think. You've only been assigned one story."

"I know, but the assignment meetings are strange. All the reporters sit in on them and of course, I get the scraps- that's to be expected, I'm the lowest in rank- but the approach to the politics is..." He shook his head. "I can't put a finger on it. It's odd is all."

"How so?"

"Someone pitched a story about de Valera going to America next month to raise money for the republican government. And the editors shot it down because '_people don't want to read international news_.' How does that qualify as international news? It's a joke."

"Do you think it was deliberate?"

"I don't know. The _Daily_'s not anti-republican. At least it didn't used to be."

"Maybe the editors just don't like de Valera. Or America. Or news about government finances," Sybil conjectured. "You're still very new, I'm sure there are dynamics you don't yet know."

"You could be right. Emigrants _are_ a touchy subject. Irish people are people who live in Ireland, not people who live in Chicago and have never set foot here. We're a country, not a character trait. And people who left Ireland for America are people who_ left Ireland_."

"I understand that sentiment. My mother certainly didn't instill in us any particular concern about American politics."

"The financing question is interesting though," Tom continued. "They must be desperate if the republican leader's going hat-in-hand to the States."

"Where else would they get the money?"

"The person to ask is my brother, if I ever see him," Tom rued. "That's his _job_." Sybil shuffled uneasily. She had told Tom about her brief encounter with Liam and the rotten eggs, but not about his rudeness or his parting shot to her. "Another reporter heard a rumor that the Dail wants ten pounds from every business. He wasn't sure if it would be quarterly or monthly."

"Like a tax?" The revolutionary parliament wasn't recognized as a government; most British newspapers didn't recognize it existed at all. "Can they _do_ that?"

"It would probably be a 'voluntary' contribution, though I'm sure they have means to coerce people to pay," Tom guessed. "In addition to regular taxes, which will still have to be paid to the British as long as they control the police force and the courts and the prisons."

"That sounds pretty unreasonable, not to mention unpopular."

"But probably not as unreasonable or unpopular as asking poor citizens to cough up."

"Better to ask the Americans to pay for it," Sybil quipped wryly.

"Right. Hey, hold up. You might be onto something." He stopped short. "What if I pitched a story about local shop owners who can't afford to pay the tax or contribution and then talk about de Valera's trip as a potential solution?"

She nodded slowly, as the idea percolated in her head. "I like it."

"I'd definitely get the colorful reaction the editors want if I asked people about new taxes."

"But this could wind up being a story about how no one wants to finance Sinn Fein." Sybil glanced up at Tom. "Is that really a story you want to write?"

"I want to report the truth," he answered. "The press doesn't serve the government, it serves the people. I think Sinn Fein's goal of a Free State would be best for the people, but that doesn't mean it won't make mistakes and we shouldn't point them out. Take the man on the tram the other day- he's worried about a tax because he can't afford it, but that doesn't mean he's against freedom for Ireland. I don't think censoring his concern is helpful to Sinn Fein."

"Sinn Fein might not agree."

"Look, a free Ireland will come at a cost," Tom went on, as they rounded the corner with the run-down grocery that led back to Mrs. Branson's street. "The question is how much and from whom? What are people prepared to pay? We're not doing Sinn Fein any favors by not asking those questions. Preferably before it's too late and they lose public support."

Sybil peered into the window of the grocery, with its permanently half-empty shelves and poster advertising a sale on pig's feet. _We don't have a real butcher here_, Mrs. Branson had informed her (as usual, as if she were the stupidest person on earth for having asked). _ How would we keep a butcher in business?_ She wondered how that grocer would feel about handing over an extra ten quid to a collector. "You should take a poll. Of the businesses in the neighborhood."

Tom was impressed. "That's a brilliant idea. But unfortunately, I don't have time to visit every store in the neighborhood."

"You don't," she smiled. "But I do."

* * *

><p>Late that night, Tom and Sybil knelt on the floor in their nightclothes, poring over a map of the northside neighborhoods Tom had hand-drawn from memory and Sybil's tram schedule. He circled a large section. "We can poll the businesses here together tomorrow morning. The editorial meeting isn't until eleven, but most stores open at eight."<p>

"Great! We'll go street by street- you take one side, I'll take the other. And I'll do rest myself in the afternoon." His face screwed up with apprehension. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea. You going door-to-door alone."

"I can do it," she reassured him. It had taken an hour to persuade him to accept her assistance; she didn't want to revisit the debate. "I've done it before."

"The English aren't exactly popular these days, especially around here."

"Women voting wasn't popular either. And I won't be alone- these are all shops, I assume there will be customers in them."

_The customers won't be like you either_, he wanted to say, but he refrained. "I'll give you my credential to show to people, so they'll know it's official." He stared down at the map and saw all the places he hadn't remembered until now, like the repair shop owned by the O'Grady brothers with their stupid, feral faces and arms full of scars, who would be confounded when Sybil bounced in with her bright, British "Hullo!" _Oh God, she'll probably wind up dead in an alley_. He started rattling off instructions- survival tips- as fast as he could think of them. "Wear your plainest clothes. _Not_ the blue coat. Do _not_ wear that, it reeks of posh." Her amused expression further wrenched his stomach. "Wear your raincoat, raincoats are all the same. Maybe borrow a hat from my mother."

"_Tom_." She flashed a broad, confident smile and patted his hand. "I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine."

"I know I can't talk you out of it-"

"No. You can't," she confirmed resolutely.

"I would just feel better if you were- if you looked and talked- this is a rough place, Sybil. What will you do when someone tells you to _feck the feck_ off?"

"Tom!" she snorted- an unladylike guffaw that her hand moved reflexively to suppress. "I think- I think I would ask them what they mean?"

He was even more concerned by her girlish, giggling reaction. "You'd ask what they mean when they tell to feck the feck off their property? They'll pull out a shotgun and show you, especially if you're laughing like a monkey!"

"I don't laugh like a monkey, but I _am_ laughing because it's funny, how you said it," she defended, cheeks still dimpled. "How would one- I mean- that _word- _it doesn't make any sense used that way!"

"_Sybil_."

"Alright, alright." She straightened up and composed herself. "If someone told me to leave, I would do so. But I don't expect them to. This will be easier than you think."

"Oh, you think so?" He assumed he was hearing more blithe naivete from her. _Nope, this is not going to work_. She rubbed his mother the wrong way and his mother wasn't a hulking O'Grady parolee (at least one of them had been to prison- by now, it was probable they all had). It was insane. It was insane for him to have agreed to it, but she had won him over with _I've done this before_ and _It'll be afternoon_ and _I'd never go into any place alone- come on Tom, do you really not think me savvier than that_? "You think this will be _easy_?"

"No, I _know_ it will. People like to be asked their opinion." That awareness had been her best asset when she had canvassed. "Lots of people feel they can't express themselves or aren't heard when they do. They're happy to talk to you. And I know that because I've done it and you haven't and frankly, I don't think you know a thing about it."

"I'm just worried about you."

"You really needn't be. I'm quite capable, Tom."

"I know you are, but there are parts of the world you don't know."

"And I will never know them if you insist on sheltering me," she impressed. "Would it help bring you round if I told you you're acting like Lord Grantham?"

"Hardly!" He regarded her rapier smile with bemusement. "That's a low blow, Syb."

"Shows I'm not afraid of a scrap though, right?" Her tone carried a light apology. "I know you're not," she continued, now fully contrite. "I just wish you would _trust_ me."

"It's not about _trust-_" He stopped and sighed in frustration. "I don't ever wish to constrain you. I'm just not sure this particular exercise is the best idea for Lady Sybil Crawley from the earldom of Grantham."

"It's Nurse Crawley from Yorkshire," Sybil refuted. "And that will have to be good enough because I can't be reborn as the daughter of a welder from Dublin and you knew that when you brought me here."

"I suppose you're right."

"I usually am."

"Don't push your luck." He gave her knee a gentle push as he said it. She caught his hand and held it, a thank you in her eyes for his concession. He started to chuckle. "I'm just trying to imagine you as the daughter of a welder around here," he explained. "Dirty dresses and a sailor's mouth. Getting into fights with the other girls after school. Drinking after dark, being sloppy with boys." He shook his head. He had known those girls growing up; they were _not_ Sybil. "I can't imagine it."

But his once and future girl was affronted. "I'm tougher than I look."

"Your had your first kiss at twenty-one, in fancy-dress with your hair all pretty, given to you by the man you agreed to marry." He made his case, indulging in a recollection he loved to revisit and even now- even _now_- half-feared that one time, he will go back and it will have vanished, a landmark from the past torn down, making him doubt such a perfect denouement could have ever happened to him. "A man who was so taken, so struck dumb by your answer he didn't think to lay a hand on you." That man was now so taken and so struck dumb by the memory that he was compelled to place a kneeling kiss on her cheek, stroking the skin in its wake. "And I couldn't be gladder for it, that you were born there and not here," he professed with a sincere smile. "Say, are you tired?"

"No, why?" She wondered if he knew that, in this moment, she would say yes to anything.

He must not have known, or he surely wouldn't have said, "Get dressed. We're going out."

"It's nearly midnight. Where are we going?"

"On a field trip of sorts." She lifted an eyebrow at his cryptic description. "Call it a 'real school.'"

* * *

><p>"It looks closed," Sybil observed as they stood outside an unpainted, windowless, knob-less wooden door on the corner of a battered mixed-use building.<p>

"Exactly," Tom replied. He rapped his fist twice, fast. A moment later it opened, the burly forearm of a half-obscured owner providing entrance. "No handle on purpose," Tom explained in her ear. "Keeps the drunks from coming back in." They stepped into a spartan, dimly-lit room comprised of a bar, a few haphazard card tables, and a dart board. There were peanut shells and a dozen booze-induced workingmen scattered about, and every set of eyes in the room was watching her with unveiled expressions of vacant inebriation, disapprobation, or lust; or, most disconcertingly, all three simultaneously. "Welcome to the neighborhood," Tom muttered under his breath, with a clap on her back. "Is it what you expected?"

She would not give him the satisfaction of shock or revolt, so she merely followed him- aware of the eyes following her- up to the bar, where Tom greeted by name a grizzled bartender, who did not appear to recognize him. "It's Tommy Branson," he reminded, an almost child-like prompt.

The bartender's eyes flew wide. "Feck me. You grew up!"

"It happens," Tom mumbled, accepting a handshake. Sybil watched the reconnaissance with curiosity.

The bartender grinned and gestured towards Sybil. "Bringing her to meet the family?"

"Something like that," Tom laughed in a way that only Sybil knew was uneasy. The bartender turned to a portly man on the nearest stool. "You blind? Can't you see her standing here? Get the feck up!" The fat man whined, but reluctantly relinquished his seat, waddling to a stool at the end of the bar. "This is an establishment with _manners_," the bartender boasted, then turned to Tom. "You want draught or something harder?"

"Beer's fine."

"How's your mother?"

"She's well, thank you."

"She's a good woman, your mother."

In her opposite ear, Sybil heard the displaced man impugn, "A good woman would be at home, where she _belongs_. It's no place for a woman, not at this time of night." She was quite sure he intended her to hear it.

The bartender set down two pints, but refused to take Tom's money. "No, no. It's on the house."

"Please-" Tom implored and then, as if it pained him to elaborate, "I'm sure it's far less than what's owed you."

"I couldn't take money from you, lad." It was a period on the conversation. "I'm an old friend of your father's and we take care of our own round here. Good to see you've grown up well." Tom nodded and thanked him, as Sybil heard again in her ear, "_They take your money and then your chair_-"__

"Tom, perhaps we'll drink them at a table?" Sybil suggested. They settled at one and Sybil could see she was still an object of oddity (and more) among the patrons, but she did her best to ignore it. Tom's demeanor had completely altered since they'd started talking to the bartender and she suspected he had forgotten about the "educational" intent of their trip. She took a sip of beer before inquiring, "What did he mean when he said he was an old friend of your father's?"

"He's Irish. He's old friend of everyone," Tom deflected with a shrug.

"It seemed that he hadn't seen you in a long time," she pressed. "Longer than six years. Longer than you've been drinking."

It was several minutes before he responded and only when he did, did Sybil notice he hadn't touched his drink. "I had to come get him sometimes." It was an even voice, a deadened voice that defied pity. "It was a shock when we walked in- I didn't expect to see _the same bartender_. It's been what, twenty years? He's not dead or doing something else? Christ, nothing ever changes around here."

Tom fell silent again, his thoughts consumed with scenes he hadn't thought about for two decades and which Sybil wouldn't presume to comprehend. Finally, she leaned into him. "We can't change who we were born. But things do change. You're proof of that."

"Thank you. That's kind."

"I didn't say it to be kind, I said it because it's true."

"You've a good compass for both." He forced a smile, to pull himself out of himself. "Do you want another drink?"

"Do you?"

He sized up his yet-untouched stout. "I dragged you out in the middle of the night, I think I owe you a good time." He took a long gulp. "So what do you say? They ever teach you to play darts back at the Abbey?"

Sybil, it turned out, was crap at darts- "It'll be a victory if it sticks to the board!"- but she was a natural at a makeshift game that involved throwing peanuts into a pint glass at the far end of the bar for a prize of whiskey shots. And she was clever too, offering her loot to the men gathered around them- which served the dual purposes of getting all of them on her side (Tom had to concede, "It'll be a cold day in hell before a drunk refuses a free drink, even from a rich Brit.") and keeping her sober enough to continue winning. All except for the fat man whose seat she had taken when they had first come in, who now insisted on a running critical commentary of her marksman abilities. "Why d'ya throw like _that_? It's not bowling. Throw it overhand." She threw another- a hit! and hoots from the room- and another, just a bit wide. "She can't make them all," Tom shouted, hands on her shoulders, "she'll make us look bad!"

"She's off balance, that's why it's gone wide," the detractor piped up. "Stand up straight, why don'tcha?"

Tom caught Sybil's face and saw she was close to murder. "You can't let them give you any crap, you know," he tsked.

"And what makes you think I don't?" she snapped. Sybil accepted another winning shot from the bartender and slid it down the bar. "There's one for you," she offered inhospitably to her critic. "Now feck off." The men _roared_.

"Feel better?" she asked Tom later, as he helped her into her coat.

"Yep." Their conversation was interrupted, as she fielded questions about when she would come back again. He was not quite sure how his posh English girl had managed to become so popular in less three hours with the people who, he was sure, made up the brunt of the anti-Crown sentiment in this city, but he marveled at it nonetheless.

On the way out the unmarked door, she merely said, "I think I passed."

"Yep," he conceded. "I think you did."


	54. Chapter 54: The Reporter Part II

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! Here's part 2. _

_And a random request- I haven't been able to find a map of the Dublin constituencies in the 1918 election (found a website with the election returns though- awesome). I think the Branson home would have been in Dublin-St. Michan's, but I'd love to know for sure._

* * *

><p><strong>End of May 1919<strong>

As soon as the clock struck six, Tom bolted from the office and hurried home, eager to find out how Sybil's solo afternoon of polling had gone. His mother greeted him at the door with a smile and the day's mail. "Where's Sybil?"

An indignant hand went to her hip. "Hello to you too."

"Sorry, Mam." He kissed her cheek. "But about Sybil-?"

"She's out. Been gone all afternoon." He had decided to keep their project under wraps until they had the results. "You can talk to your old Mam, you know," she prodded pointedly. He declined with a boyish shrug as he rifled through the post. "Yet you'll come up with plenty to say when Lady Sybil walks through that door."

"She's just who I talk to, I suppose."

"You must have had friends in England. The _servants_, I mean."

"Not really. I liked most of them well enough, but they weren't my friends." He smiled at the memory and also because it was the past. "I had Sybil."

"Speaking of you and your Lady Sybil, why were your shoes wet this morning?"

"What?"

"When I came down at five for Mass this morning, you were asleep but your shoes and hers were wet. Which is interesting, since it didn't start raining until after midnight."

Tom thought that, at 28, he might enjoy a redux tussle with his Mam about a curfew, but before he could respond, Sybil came through the door, flushed with a thick folder tucked under her arm. "Hi, darling."

He gave her a once-over as she shrugged out of her coat. "You're alive, thank God. How was it?"

"Tiring! I must have walked ten miles today, I had keep tracking back to the owners who were out to lunch or had closed up shop for an errand. But nevermind that. Come sit, I have so much to report." Sybil took Tom's hand and pulled him into the parlor. "Oh! And I met the O'Gradys."

"You did?"

"Yes, and I'm going to pay them a visit this weekend." She grinned. "It's actually a house call. When I went into their shop, I saw one of them had a fresh wound on his arm- he was in a knife fight- and I told him I was a nurse and offered to dress it for him."

She reported "_in a_ _knife fight" _as casually as if it were _in the kitchen, _though he was quite certain she had never seen or known anyone who had ever been in a knife fight. "And then what?"

"Then I dressed it, silly. And as I did, we talked about the tax. He's against it, by the way." She opened the folder and pointed to O'Grady's name on a long list of signatures. "I did as you said and got everyone to sign permission to name them or their business in the story."

"That's a lot of names," Tom observed. "And they are all against the tax?"

"Everyone was against it," Sybil confirmed.

"Not a single person in support?"

"Not one." She showed him another sheet of paper, at the top of which she had written _In Support_. It was blank.

Tom sat back, taking in the juxtaposed results. "Well, that's quite striking."

* * *

><p>His editors agreed. And thus, Tom's first front-page story for the <em>Irish Daily<em> was... blank.

Under the headline: **EXCLUSIVE - NEW TAX! **it read, in large black lettering:** **ALL IN FAVOR- AYE**** followed by a full page of white space. On the back page, it read:**** **ALL OPPOSED- NAY ******with all the available space filled with the signatures of local business owners. On the inside, the article by **Tom Branson, Reporter**: _**The People say NO to Business Tax proposed by 'The People's Parliament'!**_

"It was all the talk at the newstand!" his mother beamed, as the three of them sat down to a celebratory dinner two nights later; it had taken two days for Tom to do the reporting for the supporting article. "Sybil, read it aloud again, while I bring in the food," Mrs. Branson directed. Tom's mother had been much nicer to her since she found out her role in the project.

Sybil unfolded the paper and read: "_The Irish Daily surveyed more than two hundred shop owners in St. Michan's constituency about the proposed tax on businesses. Sinn Fein received 65% of the vote in St. Michan's in the parliamentary election less than six months ago, but survey results showed 100% opposition to the party's proposed tax. St. Michan's representative Michael Staines, who _also serves as the Director in the Department of Economic Affairs for Sinn Fein, _refused the request for a comment."_

"I didn't know he was Economic Affairs when we started," Tom informed the women. "Can you believe it? If he wasn't behind the tax, he certainly knew about it."

"His office must be getting inundated with complaints," Sybil commented.

"What do you think, Ma?" Tom asked as Mrs. Branson took her seat. "He's your representative."

She batted a hand. "Forget Mr. Staines. I don't care about his career. I want to hear about your promotion."

"Well, it's not a promotion exactly," Tom answered, a bit embarrassed. "I'm still a beat reporter, but they think I have a feel for politics, so no more Northside potholes."

"And they made you staff," Sybil added.

"It's not much more money, but it's guaranteed income."

"You've made your mark," Mrs. Branson smiled, "that's what matters."

"I couldn't have done it without Sybil."

Sybil blushed. "That's not true."

"It is," he insisted. "You came up with the idea and you did most of the legwork. And there's this!" He reached into his pocket and grandly placed a half-sovereign next to her plate. "That's for you. Ten shillings, courtesy of the _Irish Daily_- the day rate for freelancers. I tried to get you a name credit on the article, but they wouldn't do it."

Sybil picked it up and held it in her palm. A strange expression crossed her face which Tom initially misunderstood. "I know it's not much money, but-"

"It's my first wages," she said with undeniable pride. "I've never been paid for my work before."

Because Sybil _had_ worked- and _hard_- and because she was so proud of her son, Mrs. Branson could not be irritated by another reminder of Lady Sybil's fatuous life. "To Tom's success." She tipped her glass toward her almost daughter-in-law, still clutching the coin. "And to Sybil's contribution to it."

Sybil asked Tom if he would hold her first wages for her- "and don't swap it for some other change, I want that coin, that one's authentic"- before leaning over and vowing in a low voice, "I will get my name in the paper yet. When I start calling myself Branson, my name will be in the paper all the time."

It was at that moment- as her ankle slid around his under the tablecloth and he was clocking how many hours until he could properly thank her and if perhaps she would let him slide under the sheet for awhile and sing again the wordless song of Liverpool- that the front door slammed and his little brother hurtled into the room. "Way to feck us, Tommy!" Liam threw down a crumpled copy of the _Daily. "Way to _really feck us!"__

"Liam!" his mother admonished. But she knew this was not characteristic of Liam and whatever had upset him was serious.

"Two-_hundred_ signatures?" Liam raged at Tom. "You couldn't just quote a couple of whingers. You had to publish the names of _two-hundred _business owners opposed to the proposal_. _And their_ _signatures?!"__

"It was actually two-hundred eleven," Sybil corrected him, unmoved. Liam looked to her as if he just now realized her presence. "Tom thought it would be a dramatic visual to put all the signatures a single one page, like a petition."

"_Dramatic_?" Liam spluttered. "You think it's dramatic?"

"I think it was brilliant," Sybil retorted.

"Did you do this to impress her?" Liam demanded of Tom. "Is that the price of admission?"

Tom had been prepared to indulge Liam's anger, but the slight toward Sybil changed that. "The business tax was a stupid idea that would have killed Sinn Fein's popularity. Luckily, you found that out _before_ it was put into action. You should be thanking us for helping you avert a disaster."

"The Unionists are hanging it in their windows, flying it like a bloody flag!" Liam shouted. "Even the _Times_ praised it- 'the first sensible thing ever printed in the _Daily_.' The _Times_, Tommy! The unofficial press shop of the British Empire!"

"You have a Director of Propaganda- Ginnell, isn't it?- let him fix it. We can arrange an interview and he can disavow the whole idea. The people have spoken and people's government has heard them and all that."

"_Government_? What government? Tom, we don't have a government!" Liam's voice cracked as he ran a wild hand through his hair- exactly the way Tom did, Sybil noticed. _ "_Ginnell's on his way to America because _we don't have any fecking money!"_

"Liam, sit down," his mother tried to intervene. "Let me fix you a plate."

"I'm not bloody sitting down with him." Liam's face darkened. "And I've _news_ for you, Tom. You don't have a fecking government if you don't have any revenue to run it. But maybe you missed the day they taught that lesson in the garage."

Sybil's mouth dropped open at the insult and she would have charged after Liam, but Tom beat her to it.

* * *

><p>"Get the feck back here!" The front door clattered as Tom chased Liam out of it.<p>

Liam stopped on the scratchy lawn and lit an agitated cigarette. "Have at it, then."

"I handed your arse to you today and you're pissed about it," Tom fumed. "And I get that. But you went to school on that garage and you damn well know it, so don't you dare throw it in my face." Liam had been puffing and stewing, but on that his posture turned contrite. "You fecked up, Liam. I support Sinn Fein, God knows I do, but they fecked up on this."

"And what do you propose we do?" Liam demanded.

"I don't know. I wish I had an answer for you. But you'll have to find another way."

"How many options do you think we have? Very few. _Good_ options? None, Tom. We have none." They stood then, at a charged impasse as Liam smoked and Tom stuffed his hands in his pockets. Somewhere down the street, children shouted at play.

"I have a desk next to this lad," Liam finally spoke, "who had his arm near shot off on the roof of the Post Office. And because he stayed on the roof, didn't come down to be treated, it didn't heal right. It hurts him so much that he has tears running down his face whenever he writes long memos. I say to him, 'John, give it over to me, I'll write it out for you.'" Liam inhaled a rasped breath. "Do you know what he says? He says, 'This is what I took the bullet _for.'"_

Liam fished out another cigarette, after hasty sweep of his cheeks; Tom couldn't remember the last time he had seen his brother cry. "Every day, this grand revolution is a day away from dead. And if it's stamped out, like every other time, John and I and all of us will probably be put in prison and tried for treason. Which is punishable by execution." First tears and now Tom saw fear in his little brother's trembling cigarette. "And I am sure we will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Your princess' people will want to send the right message that insurrection against the British Crown will not be tolerated."

"They can't execute a parliament-"

"Oh shut up, Tom, you sound stupid. Of course they can. Winners can do whatever they fecking want."

Tom had not ever considered that Ireland might not win this time. This time wasn't schoolboys with stolen weapons on a rooftop. This time, Sinn Fein had a created a parliament. This time, it had a mandate from a (mostly) democratic election. Surely, _that_- a government, a democratic vote- couldn't just be gunned down...

Liam continued, "You say you're committed to a Free Ireland and I think your sentiment is sincere. But me and the people I work with have staked our lives on it succeeding, while your major contribution to the cause so far has been fecking a Lord's daughter. So forgive me if I just don't have it in me to thank you for pointing out our folly on the front page."

* * *

><p>When he ran out of cigarettes, Liam came back in, still steamed. The princess was in the parlor wanting to know Tom's whereabouts, but he ignored her, picking up a<em> Daily<em> from one of two columns of copies stacked proudly on the coffee table. "It ran in both the morning and the evening edition," she explained from somewhere in the room. "I bought both." The outrage over this reportage- this _stunt- _had preceded it and Liam hadn't actually gotten around to reading it. He did so now, aware he was being scrutinized from the base of the stairs.

"Do you know what I find amazing?" she said suddenly. Liam did not respond. "I find it amazing that Tom and I talked to two-hundred eleven people and you haven't asked what a single one of them thought. Do you even care what they think, these people you presume to work for?"

"I _work_ for Ireland."

"And what is that?" she challenged. "It's not war widows and it's not shop owners. So who _is_ it? Do you even know?"

_Should have held your tongue,_ he chastised himself. If he had, she would have just gone upstairs; but he hadn't and now he was _conversing with her._ He lowered the newspaper and turned to face her. "I'm sure you think yourself so clever with your little poll, but there's no political courage in opposing taxes. There is nothing less popular than taxes."

"As there is nothing less courageous than only doing what's popular," she shot back. "So do it anyway. You say it's necessary, so tell people that- you have to pay because somebody does and we decided that person is you. If you want it, if you believe it's right, then _you_ fight for it. It's not Tom's or anyone else's job to do it for you."

The bite in her words surprised them both and a beat passed before Liam showed a cold smile. "Is Her Ladyship quite finished? Or would she care to offer some further instruction in Irish politics and economics?"

Sybil, as ever, did not flinch or back down. "You think _you're_ so clever. I think Tom was exactly right."

Liam uttered an intolerant sigh. "Well, I'm not paid to pretend to care what you think. None of this concerns you anyway."

But it _did_ concern her- not Liam, but Ireland and Tom's investment in it- and for that reason, she decided to tell him, "They don't think Ireland's going to win. That's why they don't want to pay. They want Sinn Fein to succeed, but they don't have money to spend on defeat. If you could somehow show them, convince them, that this time it will be different, they'd be proud to support it."

Liam's head snapped up- that was a surprise and even possibly, a solution. "That's what they said anyway," she finished, as she turned and ascended the stairs.

* * *

><p>Tom spent an hour walking and thinking before returning home, where he found Liam with his head reclined on the back of the sofa, staring at the ceiling. "You still here?"<p>

"Yeah." It would have become awkward, but Liam preempted it by apologizing. "Sorry about earlier."

"Some part of it was right," Tom had to admit.

"I said too much," Liam said, as Tom sat down beside him. "Shocking, huh?"

"Thank God I've never been guilty of that." He lobbed a lopsided grin to Liam who laughed as he always did- with infectious abandonment, face scrunched and shoulders shaking- as he had when they were children, and Tom knew his brother had forgiven him.

The brothers fell into a familial silence. Tom had found a new intimacy with Sybil, but even now there was no one Liam was closer to than Tom. They had shared a room until Tom left for England and a bed for some years before that, when poverty had forced all four Branson boys into one bedroom. There were five years between them, but it had never felt like that. Tom had embraced his little brother, letting him tag along with the older lads, teaching him about books and sports and life and girls, which streets to steer clear of and why it wasn't worth hating their father. After all that his brother had done for him, it wasn't for Liam to forgive Tom _anything_.

Liam picked up the discarded _Daily_. "Some of these names- Malachy O'Halloran, Colum Connor- Jesus, I haven't thought about them in years."

"You figuring how many of their missuses you bedded?" Tom teased.

"Getting to know the constituents, thank you." Liam arched an eyebrow. "But if you must know, it's six. And Pat Farrell's sister, though I don't know if that counts, she's been with everyone." He continued to peruse the list. "Billy O'Grady? I thought he was in jail."

"He's out now. Sybil met him. Stitched up a cut he got, in fact." Liam was incredulous until Tom explained that she had trained as a nurse in the war. "It's still incredible," Tom went on. "I couldn't believe it when Sybil told me. I said to her, "So you walk in and there's Billy O'Grady, all twenty stones of him, bloodied from a fight and you ask him if you can fix-up his boo-boo?' And she says, 'Of course not. I asked him if he bloody won!'"

"Huh." Liam appeared somewhat impressed.

"She said she learned at the hospital, with the soldiers, that 'some men want to be cared for, but others want to feel brave.' Figure out what they need and you'll know how to handle them."

"Probably not bad political advice." Liam tossed the newspaper down. "We are pretty seriously fecked, you know. We need something to break our way. If the America trip is a bust, it's over."

"What about Versailles, next month? Ireland asking for recognition in front of the whole world, at a conference presided over by the world's first democracy, in the cradle of its most famous revolution. Couldn't ask for a more compelling stage than that."

"They'll applaud our effect and send us back home to slaughter. There's no way America or France is going to cross Britain. Didn't you read Marx?"

"I _lent_ you Marx."

"Well, didn't you learn anything? '_America, the world's first democracy_'- come on, Tommy. It's the world's biggest economy and England and France are drowning in debt. What do you think they care more about- that Ireland gets its freedom or they get paid back?"

"I'm not that cynical, Liam."

"Then you're not that realistic, Tom."

"The world isn't always motivated by money. There isn't a worse financial move than to abolish slavery, but it happened," Tom argued. "I believe people can do the right because it is right."

"I don't believe that at all," Liam countered. "People always act in their own self-interest. Sometimes two competing interests collide- in the case of the American Civil War, I'd venture the Northern industries got sick of the Southern ones having free labor and they would have been fecked with Confederate tariffs besides. Do I believe a country went to war with itself for the virtue of the free Negro? No. Just as Ireland's not fighting to defend the virtue of self-determination. No Irish care about the African cause or the Indian cause. We care about our own selves, that's all. The rest of it is just shyte we put in speeches."

The words stung Tom and Liam could see it; Tom was the kind of person who wrote those speeches and Liam knew the people who wrote them mostly believed them. "Ah Tommy, with your bleeding heart. You're shocked, aren't you?"

"Shocked and dismayed, to learn you think of the world that way."

"Well, a dead man can't rise and walk out of his tomb either." He pulled a flask from his inside pocket. "Mam doesn't keep it in the house. Get some glasses, will you?"

Tom did and Liam issued two generous pours. "The world's a lot different than it is in your books."

"You're the one with the university education, not me," came Tom's sharp reminder.

"You're brighter than me. But maybe that's your curse." Tom looked down at the floor; Liam wondered what he thought of the conjecture. "I stick to economics. I can't stomach all that political fiction anymore. I'm not working for a Utopian society. I'm working to get the British out of Ireland. Ireland will still be a carcass, but we don't have to let the vulture pick at our bones."

"They better not send you to Versailles or America. That's hardly a vision of New Eireann," Tom remarked miserably.

"Then I'd advise you to revise your expectations." Liam poured himself a second. "But I'd still take a bullet for this cause. I hate the British, I hate what they've done and what they continue to do to this country and others. I doubt there's any people in history who have killed and pillaged more than the Right and Honorable of the British Empire. I hate that the world knows it and glorifies them anyway. And they'll go to Versailles and demand the Germans be bled and quartered and be hailed as heroes. Don't get me wrong, I hate the Huns too, but is it too much to ask that an executioner be called by the name?"

Tom was not inclined to rebut his brother's polemic, except to state for the record, "I don't hate the British. I want a Free Ireland, but I don't hate them and I don't blame them for the actions of their government either."

"I suppose that would be tricky for you," Liam rued.

"I love her, Liam. And she is who I've chosen. You'll have to get right with that."

"If you say so." Liam had given Sybil a hard time, but he knew in the end, Tom would not negotiate on her. "For your sake, I hope your Maud Gonne treads softly."

Tom appreciated the reference and smiled confidentially into his cupped hands. "On this, all the shyte in the speeches and books is true. I promise you that."

Liam shifted and stole a glance at the clock. "One more, for the road?" Tom nodded and Liam took the opportunity to make a final point as he topped them off. "The thing about the poll, Tommy, is that had it gone the other way, had people supported Sinn Fein's proposal, they wouldn't have printed it. Yes, you published the truth, but it was a convenient truth."

"_The Daily_ supports a Free Ireland."

"_The Daily_ is a business, like everything else. You'll see. But there is plenty of time for politics. For now, let's drink." Liam raised his glass and offered the age-old salutation. "God save Ireland."

* * *

><p>Well into the night, Tom sat in the dark thinking, until his mother interrupted his solitude. "Has Liam gone?"<p>

"Yep. The night shift started and he suddenly had someplace to be."

"I'll bet." Mrs. Branson moved to clean up the glasses. "Did you two talk it out?"

"As much as we can, I suppose." Tom offered her a chastened smile. "He thinks me naive."

"About what?"

"Ireland. And politics," Tom said, "because I don't believe people only act out of self-interest."

Mrs. Branson brushed off the criticism. "Oh, that's just his ignorance talking."

"I know," Tom responded with less confidence than his mother. "I didn't argue with him."

"You were right not to. He doesn't know what you know." She puttered and Tom waited for her to elaborate. "I didn't suffer through four labors out of self-interest. And if I hadn't had you boys, I could have dressed near as fine as your Lady Sybil. But it was the best money I ever spent and not a pence of it on myself. That's love for you."

She regarded him then- at first familiarly, mother to child, but her expression morphed, as if she were seeing someone else. "But what am I telling you for..." And in an instant, it vanished. "Goodnight, son."

* * *

><p>Sybil was barely awake when he came upstairs and pressed a kiss to her cheek; she mumbled a half-coherent hello from the pillow. "Go back to sleep, darling," he whispered, as her eyes closed. "We'll talk in the morning." She replied with a somnambular smile and Tom recalled the words from Yeats, which Liam had reminded him of tonight:<p>

_I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams._

Like all Irish schoolchildren, Tom had been made to memorize them, these paeans to the Irish soul, and sometimes the words came back to him at strange times: sometimes hopefully, like that sleepless night before he proposed; or shamefully, like the night afterward; or as a revelation, as now, dropped on his knees at Sybil's bedside, as her hand searched out his in sleep. Liam was right, he had not committed himself to Ireland. He had made that choice. He rested his head on hers as Liam's words, so easily spoken, echoed in his mind:

"_I'd still take a bullet for this cause_."

And he wondered, what did it mean that he wouldn't?

* * *

><p><em>So if you made it this far, thanks! I know this is a monster chapter, but I wanted to draw all the parameters re: the politics. I swear there is a reason for all the stuff included in this chapter- it will be important later!<em>


	55. Chapter 55: June 1919

_Thanks so much for the reviews and for being so game on the politics/history. I appreciate it! How about a little fluff?_

* * *

><p><strong>Last Night of May 1919<strong>

The circulation numbers for the _Daily_ editions on the business tax broke into the paper's all-time top 50- an impressive feat, considering the number of historic headlines since the Great War was declared. Tom's reputation as an up-and-comer was cemented, though concurrently his sense of self was on shifting sands. Reporting was harder for him than the veteran journalists, who joshed him for not knowing the tricks of the trade, for not getting his calls answered or his interview requests granted, for "getting snowed" by sources with an agenda or a has-been angling for a bit of self-importance and a free drink on the _Daily_'s tab, as had been the case this afternoon. "_Who_ told you that?" the deputy political editor had embarrassed him in front of the entire unit. "Oh, he's washed up. He hasn't been in the inner-circle of Irish politics since Parnell!"

"You have to be smarter," one gruff journo offered. "You can't let them take you in like that." _But how do you know who and what is true_? Tom wanted to know. "Assume _everyone_ is lying _always_," was the journo's caustic answer, as he walked off with the same shake of his head Liam had given him. Tom Branson wasn't a person prone to crises of confidence, but the past week had made him feel like a rube. He had never felt so much a mere servant from rural England, not quite at home in his job or his own country, not least because of the question pressing on him: _what did it mean that he wouldn't?_

"It's hard," he admitted to Sybil that night, not proud of the defeat he heard in his voice. "And hard to come back. Much harder than I anticipated."

She listened to him with serious eyes and when she ran out of words, she coaxed him- in that perfect way she had- up and into the bed, to lie with her awhile and rest his cheek on her chest, among the dark ribbons of her hair. She had stopped plaiting it at night on account of his visits and he liked it; it reminded him of Liverpool and that first waking impression of her- with sleep-tousled curls cascading over her shoulders, an incontrovertible proof of what they now shared.

Soon enough, his troublesome thoughts gave way to the tactile awareness of their peaked and valleyed form as he pressed his mouth to hers and her fingers crept under his clothes. "If we stay close, it won't be so loud," he proposed in her ear. She cast a hesitant glance at the door. "But you can say no if you don't think it right." She held his stare for a deliberate, silent moment. "Lock it," she said only. He reached back and did as she instructed, then returned and scooped her up in a shivered, elated embrace. "We'll stay close," he resumed, as her eyes widened and danced. "And of course, no wild screams of passion tonight, Miss."

That was funny to them both, since even Howth had earned only a shuddered sigh ("I _am_ British," she had explained when he commented on her self-restraint). "I'll try not to hurt you," she now teased back, as she urged up his shirt. "But I can't make any promises."

He chuckled, but just in case there was truth hidden in the humor, said seriously, "It shouldn't hurt at all this time, I don't think."

"No, I don't think so. I'm not nervous about it."

He took her face in his hands, her cheeks pink from the close room, the almost-summer heat, from love and exuberance and curiosity and not at all from embarrassment or shame. He kissed each one- indeed, could not stop kissing them. "I do love you so."

"And I you."

"Then shall we love each other again, like we did before?" he asked with her words from the first night in this room. She nodded and smiled, the sentiment between them so pure and true. _People lie all the time about love and are cynical in sex, _he thought__,_ but that's not my_ experience. Could it not be the same with politics? ____But he set it aside as they made love again; noiselessly, once, then twice, in the tiny, uncomfortable bed. And his mind went silent but for the brief moment when her hands delicately lifted the sides of the white cotton nightdress her mother had chosen for her, and he wondered if she had looked the same that time she had once curtsied for the Queen.

* * *

><p><strong>June 1919<strong>

The night was on both their minds as they stood in the empty, hexagonal bedroom of the seventh prospective flat they'd seen, where the late-afternoon sun was streaming through the bare, street-side window, blanching the dark walnut floor. "Well?" Sybil implored with her voice. "What do you think?" She had fallen in love the minute the landlord had opened the door and Tom knew she wanted to take it. The location was ideal- they were both enchanted by the tree-lined streets and colored doors of Merrit Square, an unexpectedly bucolic intersection of bohemian cafes, radical bookstores, and the broad, lit-up boulevard. They'd followed the "To Let" sign up to the fifth floor and this little flat, which was nice enough- certainly nicer than any other place Tom had ever lived- but which had some visible sores and was ten percent more than his salary could comfortably accommodate, with double the security deposit.

"I think this room hasn't been painted in two years." He frowned as he touched one of several black scuffs on the whitish walls. "At least." The landlord was in the kitchen, fussing with the faucet which dripped, Tom had noticed. "And what about this?" He held up the knob that had come free from the bedroom door. Sybil replied with a game shrug. "And the window in the parlor is broken. He said it was 'stuck.' But a window has only one function and when it can't do its only function, then it it's _broke_," he groused, ever the inspector as he ambled around the room. Sybil stayed in the center of the room, her arms crossed with amusement, poised to parry his complaints. "What do _you _think?" he finally asked, already knowing the answer.

"I love it. And I think we should take it, right away."

"And what about all the problems?"

"Not problems- beauty marks," she corrected in a lively tone. "So we'll paint the room and replace the knob and fix the window."

"_He'll_ fix the window," Tom grumbled, although he knew he was done; he could never deny her. "And the drip in the sink, which he tried to slip past us."

"Alright, we'll ask him to fix the window and the sink." Tom didn't reply- he was busy tracking the wiring for the overhead light. The hunt for a flat had provided her with her first glimpse of head-of-the-household Tom; and that man, who could make _automobiles _run with his own two hands, who was used to the exacting standards of an estate managed by Carson, had no tolerance for sloppy, lazy landlords and certainly no intention of paying rent to them with their hard-earned money. At the last place they had seen, Tom had nearly become apoplectic when the landlord responded to a nasty leak in the radiator with a shrug; no sooner had they stepped onto the pavement when he exclaimed, "That's_ ludicrous_! Just imagine- a baby toddling around, suddenly hit with a spray of scalding water!"

Truth be told, Sybil had not heard a word after "_just imagine- a baby toddling around_." They had walked through six flats and never once had it occurred to her just how much life might be lived in one of them. Perhaps that accounted for her affinity to this flat, for when the door opened onto the main room and the parlor, she saw a lit fire, a red love seat with big cushions, and a golden-haired baby reaching up its arms to its father.

She came up beside him and slipped her arm into his. "We can put the bed on the back wall and a dresser on each side of the door. And the parlor's small, but the bookcases built around the fireplace are divine! We'll just get a small sofa and a chair, and maybe put a seat cushion on the window." As she drew the space in her head, she pulled a little on the sleeve of his mack; an outward manifestation of the magnetism she felt for this place. _It's home,_ she had known it as soon as she saw it. "I know there isn't much space for a desk," she continued, "but we'll cram it in somewhere. We don't need a big table, it's only us two..._"_

"You really like it that much?"

"I _love_ it," she impressed. "It's perfect. It's exactly as I pictured."

He doubted that. "The downstairs quarters are nicer than this. Much nicer and more spacious."

"The downstairs quarters don't have our books or our bed in them," she retorted, her lowered register drawing another image in his mind.

"You do know my weaknesses." He rubbed the back of his neck, regretting his next point but knowing he would make it anyway. "It's more than we said we'd spend." He and Sybil had accepted they would never agree about the money from her father- "It's your money" he maintained, and even though they had compromised and deposited the check into a savings account with both their names on it (her insistence), Sybil knew Tom had buried his passbook in his mother's curio and would never draw from it for his own purposes. But conversely, Tom knew now that Sybil would not abide an argument about using _that money _to fund their most basic need.

An irked hand immediately found her hip. "_Don't_. That's not a reason, Tom. Not on this."

"So it seems we're out of reasons then?" She nodded excitedly. "Alright. Let's put in an offer."

She squealed- shocking even herself- as she threw her arms around his neck. "Now, now," Tom cautioned as he patted her back. "You can't appear too eager or he'll jack up the price." But he couldn't deny that he too felt full of happiness, both at her happiness and at their mutual great hopes for future. The bells from the church down the block started to chime- a fortuitous accompaniment to the moment- and Sybil was overcome by the herald, the perfect expression of her emotion as she stood in what would be their bedroom in their first home, on the precipice of their new life. This is where she would hang up her uniform after work. This is where she would make love to her husband, as often as they liked, with the door fixed or not. This is where, someday (who knows when?) she might ask him to imagine a baby toddling around- and then not imagine it. It all seemed so far and so close at once, but she supposed that's just how life happened at its first, frenzied inception. Sybil sighed as she clutched Tom's arm and laid her head against his shoulder. "It is a nice sound," he noted, as they listened. "Maybe not at midnight, but we might get used to it."

She peered up at him, one heartbeat of an unspoken thank-you, before she opined, "I think God is pleased with your choice, Tom!" and poked him in the ribs.

"You mean God is pleased I chose what you chose," he chortled. "You're incorrigible."

"Get ready then," she grinned, "because I'm also about to be your wife!"

* * *

><p>The dress she found on the first try.<p>

She had briefly flirted with the idea of having her harem outfit recreated in white, for old time's sake; she thought Tom would love it, despite his unexpected attachment to a traditional wedding, but decided that her father need not be asked to endure more than witnessing his daughter marry his driver in a working-class Catholic church in Dublin. The priest and Mrs. Branson probably wouldn't appreciate her sense of style either.

As it happened, her head was turned while walking through the university district near what would be their new neighborhood, with the artists' shops and the boutiques which sold the bohemian dresses she liked so much. There it was, in the window: muslin, short-sleeved (for summer) and above-the-ankle (for the walk from the church to the restaurant), a rather un-extraordinary dress, except that it had a sweetheart neckline which had pinned to it, at its nadir, a tissue-paper flower; a burst of rebellion on a otherwise utilitarian outfit. It was perfect. It was _her_.

Sybil barely let the shop attendant finish her niceties before asking, "Do you put a real flower there?"

The shopgirl, who had a pretty face and was a few years older than Sybil, laughed. "If you dare!"

"Oh, I do," Sybil assured her. They discussed measurements and when it was determined that the dress would indeed fit Sybil, she announced with flourish, "I'll take it!" _Sorry in advance, Papa_. But she was not sorry, not sorry at all. Quite the contrary, she was thrilled in her confidence that not one person would see her in this dress and say that she looked _nice_. Sybil was quite finished with playing the part of unobtrusive ornament in someone else's world. _Bully for me_!

"Your father must be a lot more liberal-minded than mine," the shopgirl remarked as she wrapped up the dress.

"I doubt that," Sybil informed her, unable to hide her glee. "But he'll consider himself lucky if I don't come down the aisle with a red rose pinned on! I might pick white or yellow. _Might._" True to Edith's astute observation, Sybil could be a bit of a show-off and the shop attendant was proving a more than satisfactory stand-in for her mildly-scandalized older sisters.

Just the, as Sybil was being rung up, the bell above the shop door tinkled and in walked a woman about Mary's age, whom the shopgirl greeted with, "Hello, Doctor."

Sybil watched, breathless and amazed, as the _doctor_ went straight to the fabric reams, and all the nonsense about the boldness of flowers was forgotten as she determined, "_I am going to do something that will really shock them._"

* * *

><p><em>AN: I was browsing pictures of period wedding dresses- the scandalous flower dress was real!_


	56. Chapter 56: North King Street, 1916

_Thanks so much as always!_

_A/N: I tried to find the wedding dress pic again, but couldn't and I don't save search histories. Doh. Sorry! (If you want to try to find it, it was on a Pinterest board of antique wedding dresses and it was from late 1800s U.S.)_

_One more chapter until the wedding!_

* * *

><p><strong>Early June 1919<strong>

Sybil sat at the kitchen table, keeping a watchful eye on the soup on the stove (Mrs. Branson had prepared it, but tasked Sybil to the intermittent stir while it cooked... for three hours). She was working on a list of of furniture and housewares needed for the new flat, but she was finding it hard to focus in the wake of her encounter with _the doctor_.

Sybil was an optimist- by bent, but even more by determination. This was a survival tactic, her weapon of choice for life inside the big, grand box. When she encountered obstacles, she _determined_ to find a route around them. When she came up against things she could not do, she _determined_ to do _as much as I can where I can_. At nurses' training, she often did not know as much as the other girls who had been to school, held jobs, kept houses, but she made up for it with hard work. She made up for it with _determination_.

She hated it, though- hated being behind others, hated that there were so many dim places in her mind; in maths, in science, in Latin, the language of medicine; her "education," such that it was, had prepared her for a 17th century salon and permanent intellectual inferiority to the men around her (she often suspected she and Edith were brighter than their father and she was certain that Mary was). She had wanted to go to a real school. She _wanted_ to be educated. And when she had to ask the dullest nurse at the hospital to help her convert grains to drams, or what an unfamiliar chemical compound was, it burned inside. _Burned_. Because she _was_ intelligent, but she was _made_ ignorant.

But she forced it down, the humiliation; swallowed it like reflux, forced an appreciative smile and_determined _to do as much as she could. It had been a long time since she'd had to do that. The doctor made her do it today.

Sybil had politely approached the slightly harried, slightly wary woman doctor, who was Mary's age and wore a plain cross and not a crucifix. Her accent was Irish, but different from Tom's (and much different than his mother's) and her diction was not unlike Sybil's. She was clearly well-born and from the wedding band on her finger, she was not shopping for herself. "Pardon me, doctor, but may I ask- do you work at a hospital or do you have your own practice?"

"My father has a practice," the doctor answered, as if suspicious of the question. "I work with him."

"It's just that I'm quite interested in medicine-"

The doctor inspected Sybil for an indication of occupation. "Are you at Trinity?"

"No. But I do wish- I _do plan_ to continue my education after the wedding. Perhaps at Trinity! Is that where you went?"

"I did." The doctor showed a small, fraternal smile. "What college did you attend- Alexandra? Or one in England?" And Sybil was forced to admit, shamefaced, that she had been schooled at home. "_Oh, _you're one of those," the doctor sniffed, all fraternity gone. "I don't meant to be harsh, but it will take more than a recommendation from your nanny to be admitted to a school of medicine, Trinity's or any other_."_

Sybil was certain this doctor knew that a governess was not a nanny and her comment was meant as a judgment from the kind of Protestant who worshiped the virtue of hard work. She wanted to tell that doctor that she had worked for years in a war hospital- and she had possibly logged more clinical hours than the doctor had. She wanted to tell her that while she couldn't diagnose in Latin, she could spot a case of gas gangrene from a patient's complaints days, _weeks_before a diagnosis was confirmed. She wanted to tell her she could rattle off every possible side effect of sulfonamide right here, right now if asked, but that no side effect was more dangerous to a patient than hopelessness, a condition doctors too-often ignored. She wanted to tell her how she had once seen _a_ _real beating heart_- but of course, she had only been only asked to hold a bowl because she was not a doctor, nor a certified nurse, nor a graduate of a fine college or any school at all, although both her curtsy and her French were excellent.

So she forced an appreciative smile and _determined_ to get a nursing position at a big hospital, to push to be put on the difficult patient cases, to become the best nurse on staff. And she would use her wages to purchase a thick anatomy textbook, like the one Dr. Clarkson kept in his office, and she would learn the Latin names of all the body parts and every chemical compound too. _I am determined._

She looked up and found herself face-to-face with a thin child of about six with a freckled face, in a school uniform two sizes too big.

"Hello..." She was utterly confused as to why this unknown child was in Mrs. Branson's house. "Who are you?"

"Who are _you_?"

Sybil was taken aback by the brash response. "I'm the adult, you'll answer me first."

The child shifted feet and glanced around. "Where's Ma Branson?"

"She's out on an errand. Are you looking for her?" Again, the small visitor did not answer, but instead crept to the chair farthest and opposite from Sybil's. "I really can't let you stay here if I don't know who you are. I can't allow strangers in."

"_Stranger_?" The child's Irish lilt strung higher in offense. "_You're_ the one who's strange! I come here always. I've never seen you before in my life!" Sybil started to ask why she came here, but her query was interrupted by the front door. The child made a dash for it. "Uncle!" she cried. _Uncle_? "There's a strange Englishwoman in the kitchen!"

"A strange Englishwoman?" Liam's voice echoed in the hall and then he was in the doorway with the girl hoisted on his hip. He looked over Sybil for the child's benefit. "Why, she looks fairly normal to me!" The child scowled at the joke. He laughed and said to Sybil, "I see you've met Aileen."

Sybil smiled wanly. "We haven't been properly introduced."

Aileen made a terse comment in Irish to Liam. "Mind your manners, Aileen. That's not how we act." Sybil almost chortled at that, _considering_. "Aileen, this is Miss Crawley." Liam eased her around. "You know your Uncle Tom- his picture is in the parlor and he sent you _Little Women_ for your birthday. Miss Crawley is to be his wife."

"How do you do, Aileen? My friends call me Sybil and you can too, if you like." Aileen appeared still injured and clung tighter to Liam. "_Little Women_ is one of my favorite books. My sisters and I made our mother read it to us three times!"

Liam glanced up Sybil. "Uncle Tom wrote in his card that a friend's mother had read it to her. But we didn't know it was you." He nudged Aileen's cheek. "Isn't that right, _a stor_?"

Aileen pulled back and faced him. "Did you not just yell at me for speaking Irish and now you've turned around and done it yourself!"

"I suppose you're right. Though I don't think I _yelled_," Liam quibbled, setting her down on the floor. "Come now, let's sit for a minute before we go." He sat and Aileen barricaded herself between his legs, hands on his knees, sneaking curious looks at Sybil. Liam pulled a bag of lemon drops and a comic from his pocket. "For you, darlin'." Aileen settled quickly with the treats, at which point Liam explained, "I'm not really her uncle. She's my cousin's girl."

"Your cousin? The one who was-" Sybil did not speak the rest of that sentence. "North King Street. 1916."

Liam nodded, eyes on Aileen. "She was just three when it happened."

Sybil was not sure if she should say more, but the child's head was bent, unaware, over her book. "_Because he was probably a rebel." _ _Probably_. "I'm so sorry. How awful."

Liam's eyes flickered upward. "No war widow's pension for her either." Sybil accepted the rebuke. _Liam is a rebel, _it occurred to her_. Is Tom_? she wondered and then grimly, _What would an English soldier think? _Liam continued, "The Church in all its wisdom thought the new widow should hand over her only child to the convent. But that's not how we do. And uncle sounds closer, more paternal, than cousin."

"Why do you want to marry my Uncle Tom," Aileen interrupted, "when he's Irish and you're not?"

"Because we love each other and we would like to make a family of our own," she answered gently. "That's why people get married. It doesn't matter where you come from."

Aileen was unmoved as she turned a page. "Are you English Catholic at least?"

"Does it matter?" For the first time, the child looked directly at her with an expression Sybil couldn't quite interpret. "No, I'm not."

She didn't know what else to say and it hung there, until Liam reluctantly joined in to moderate. "The English aren't all bad. The Suffragettes, who fought for the women's vote, they all came from England. There weren't any native suffragists in Ireland." Aileen appeared skeptical. "Tis true, my girl. Those old boobies in the Church don't want women to be independent. That's why you need to beware of the Church. But don't you repeat that your mam or Ma Branson. That's strictly between me and my deputy."

On that, Aileen broke into a proud grin. "Liam is going to be _Príomh Aire _one day," she boasted to Sybil, "and I'm going to be his deputy!"

"It's an honor to know you then. Politics is a fine ambition, I think. Especially for women."

"Are you a suffragette?"

"Oh, yes! An ardent one."

"Well, there's that I guess!" And Sybil had to laugh at what a lost cause she was to this child.

Liam stood up. "We'd better go _a stor- _important business. A quick meeting in St. James' and then the zoo, if it's still open." He patted Aileen's head. "They have a new lion. They learned about it in school, isn't that right?"

Aileen took the prompt. "His name is Slats and he was born in March, but he's still a baby."

"That will be very exciting to see!"

Aileen shrugged. "We have important work to do. For Sinn Fein." She stuck a hand into the pocket of her dress, having at some point decided that Sybil- despite being English and not Catholic and perhaps because of her enthusiasm for political women and zoos- could be trusted. "Want to see my secret?" she asked with great conspiracy.

"Of course."

Aileen pulled the pocket inside out, revealing a fabric swatch of the revolutionary tricolor with a black cross on it. "It's the sign for Free Ireland. When I am grown like you and dress myself, I will wear it over my heart!" Aileen proclaimed. "You keep it with you and if you see military Volunteers, you show it to them- in secret- and they will tell you which train to take."

Sybil touched a finger to the cross and looked to Liam for guidance. He nodded solemnly. _Probably a rebel_. _She'll never know her father because an English soldier assumed he was probably a rebel._ "The Volunteers saluted her at Kingsbridge Station," he relayed with emotion. "Lowered their arms and saluted."

"Aye, they did!" Aileen nodded, returning her pocket.

"Nary a person has given so much for Ireland as you," Liam told the child as he led her to leave. "You're a queen of these streets, Aileen. Don't you ever forget it."

Liam reminded Sybil of Thomas just then, how in spite of his vanity and arrogance and even meanness, he had a nobility of spirit that humbled even her own, as handsome, proud Liam called this poor, plain half-orphan a queen for no purpose other than she should believe it.

* * *

><p>The next time she saw Liam was at a pub near to the new flat where Liam had convened some old school friends who worked in the city and hadn't yet seen Tom. Sybil should not have read too much into the encounter with Aileen, but Liam had stuck up for her- for the English (the suffragists at least) and even (tacitly, with his silence) for her marriage to Tom. But she was an optimist by bent and she did and so was a little hurt when her warm hello was met with little more than a mild shrug.<p>

Nevertheless, she grinned and greeted the group of spirited young men Tom had grown up with who, at some point, decided it was insufficient for Tom to repeatedly introduce Sybil as "my fiancee" again and again, and so the introductions escalated to: "My ever-fixed mark... my eternal summer... my boundless sea... my heavenly jewel Miss Sybil Crawley of Yorkshire," which both embarrassed and pleased her. She was impressed with how many Shakespearean metaphors Tom recalled from school readings (_just wait until I tell Edith!_) until she found out Tom and his classmates used to shout them across the street to the students of the girls' school. Would she have been one of those schoolgirls who professed to prefer books to boys and stuck her chin in the air when a certain self-sure, laughing lad called out to her? Maybe she wouldn't have made such a great student after all.

During this, Liam never looked at her and at some point, detached from the group and sat down alone at the bar. Sybil saw an opportunity and followed him. "May I sit?" Liam shrugged. "I'd like us to talk."

"Pubs are for drinking, not for talking," he returned. "If you want to sit and drink, it's not for me to stop you."

The barkeep came over and asked what she wanted. Sybil nodded at Liam. "I'll have what he's having."

"Whiskey. Double. In fact-" Liam picked up his glass and downed it in one- "make it two."

The barkeep quirked an eyebrow, but didn't argue and fixed their order. "You sure you don't want some water in that?"

"Quite sure, thank you."

Liam turned to her and lifted his glass. "Slainte, Princess." He threw it back. Sybil lifted her glass, the acidic smell curdling her throat. _Whatever you do, don't spit it out. _She threw it back as well. "Good?"

"Quite," she choked.

"Irish whiskey- best in the world!" _This could be fun,_ Liam thought, slapping his palm on the bar. "Another round!" He pulled out his wallet. "Actually, just bring the bottle. We can serve ourselves. What do you say, Princess?"

Sybil ignored the fatherly, remonstrating stare the barkeep was shooting at her. "Let's get to it!"

The half-full bottle was set in front of them. Liam served Sybil first. "There were banners, during the Rising," he said as he poured, "'I serve not King, nor Kaiser, but Ireland.' So tell me, Princess- who do _you_ serve?"

Sybil refused to take the bait. "I'd like us to be friends," she told him honestly. "But if we can't be friends, I'd at least like us not to be enemies. You're Tom's brother. He loves you. And I love him."

"I know." He shifted uncomfortably and Sybil saw the faintest admission of guilt. "I heard your little speech to Aileen."

"You don't think me sincere?"

"My brother spends half a decade chasing you around your castle and _only just now_ do you decide you can't possibly live without him. Then he comes back with you in tow, to fight for Ireland- or so he says- and his first story is trashing Sinn Fein!"

She frowned, not understanding the conclusion he was drawing. "Liam, do you think I'm British agent? Sent to infiltrate nationalist Irish papers and turn their political reporters with my wiles? I wish it were true- it sounds well exciting!" she said dryly, taking a drink. The smell of the whiskey reminded her of drinking with the nurses after a hospital shift, their conversations riddled with exasperation and expletives, idiot doctors and patients who were cads and asses. _What an ass,_ she thought about Liam, cooking up theories about her motives when the answer was so simple: she was a girl, a sheltered girl, and she was scared- to leave her home, her family, but also because no one had ever loved her like that and could she honor that love? That was a question that should scare anyone, man or woman of any age. Of course, Liam hadn't even thought of it. _Well, it's not for me to explain it to him_. _ Ass_.

But Liam was hung up on another word. _She thinks it would be "well exciting," to be conducting treason, does she? _"The story Aileen told earlier, about what happened at Kingsbridge-"

"How those soldiers saluted her, a child who had lost her father? I was very touched."

"Touched, were you?" The retort was out of his mouth before he realized, _She called them soldiers. Not rebels- soldiers. _He set down his drink._ Probably just a slip of the tongue_. "She didn't tell you what happened afterward."

"What happened afterward?"

"They told us to wait for the next one"- he paused for effect- "and then they shot it up."

"The train car? With people on it?"

"They didn't fire on the civilians," he told her tersely. "Of course they didn't! Why would they shoot their own people? They shot the traitors- three British informants- in the front car."

Sybil tried to picture it, although the alcohol was starting to cloud her mind. "You saw it? You and Aileen?"

"Aye, we did. The train was pulling in, the platform was crowded with people. The Volunteers told us to wait for the next train, as she said, so I took her hand and we stood against the wall. They stepped into the car and started shooting. People were screaming, but Aileen didn't scream, didn't even cover her ears. When they came out, one of them nodded at her and, God love her, she put her hand over her heart. I could have cried, I tell you."

"But not for the families of the people who'd just been killed. You didn't cry for them."

"No, not for them. Did they cry for Aileen and my cousin?" His words were thick now. "Hammurabi's code." He topped himself off from the rapidly-depleting bottle, then looked to her. She nodded. "So. You'll drink with one who salutes the murderers? Can't say I expected that."

"It's not murder, it's war. There's a difference." She accepted the refreshed drink having lost count of how many she'd had. "And if there's not, then I'm far worse than you. You saluted them. I helped save their lives."

One brow twitched as she lifted her drink with the hint of a smile. Liam saw then what his brother had been so attracted to: the sly triumphalism of that movement, a challenge to_ have at it then, if you think you can, _blue eyes sharpening in a sheath of dark lashes. She communicated all this without uttering a word. _Oh Tommy, you never had a chance._

Liam smiled genuinely at her now, but it was her turn to ignore him. The hard liquor had ceased to repel her; its warm burn was now solely and distinctly pleasurable. Did he know what a bullet looks like from the inside, trawling its pieces from human muscle and bone? Of course he didn't. Liam could feck off as well. _They all can, _she thought as she reached again for the bottle. "What do _you _say, Liam? You wouldn't let an English aristocrat out-drink you, would you?"

He smile broke into a grin. "Never."

* * *

><p>Before the last call bell, a blunt arm flung itself around Tom's shoulder. "Ah, Tommy," Liam slurred. "I'm sorry. I really am."<p>

"Sorry for what?" Tom followed Liam's gaze to the bar and he found the answer: Sybil, head cradled in one hand, falling off the stool. "Oh for God's sake, Liam!" He darted across the room and caught her. "Hi, darling," she cooed. "Where have you been? We're having a jolly good time!"

"I'm sure," Tom rued, as he eyed the empty bottle on the bar. "Come on, love. Let's take a walk. The night air will do you good." Sybil hiccuped, leaning heavily against Tom. Tom shot a look at Liam. "I could truly kill you."

Liam nodded. "Right. But for now-?"

"For now, help me take her to the flat," Tom decided. "And then think of a lie to tell Mam about why we won't be home tonight."

* * *

><p>"Hang on!" Tom urged and a second later, Sybil made her first contribution to the new little flat, which was to be sick in the kitchen sink. "At least it wasn't in the stairwell," Tom commended with a hearty clap on her back. "Well done, darling!" Tom wasn't really mad (at least not at<em>Sybil<em>)- drunk Sybil, like sober Sybil, was a trouper, although she was incredibly forward, pawing and pleading with him- "Stay with me?"- as he helped her to the bare mattress of the newly-delivered bed (the only piece of furniture yet in the flat) and started to unbuckle her shoes. "Stay, Tom. I'll be terribly nice to you. Wasn't I terribly nice the other night?" From across the room, a highly-amused Liam coughed.

"Ah love, you're making me blush." He glanced over at Liam. "I'll kill you twice if you ever speak of word of this." Tom took off his jacket and balled it up for a pillow and Sybil laid her head down, the promise of sleep making her forget her other intentions. "Here, let me take down your hair and then you can sleep it off."

Liam watched as Tom performed this ritual with care and confidence, removing the pins with precision, each coil springing free and unfurling over his wrist; Liam wondered if he did it often. When he finished, she shifted to face him and he whispered something that was not for Liam or anyone else to hear. Liam had once heard it said that there is nothing so beautiful as a woman in love, for it is _that-_ total trust and an unveiled heart- that men truly seek from women and he saw what he had not seen, could not have seen, at the bottom of the stairs when he rendered his judgment of her. And shortly, she was asleep. "You know, Sybil- she's alright."

"We've all had a night like this. She'll be alright."

But that is not what Liam had said. He lingered for minute more and then, quietly and without notice, left.

* * *

><p>"Tom?"<p>

The sound of his own name in the dark startled him. He was lost in thought, thinking about nothing really, half-seated on the bed, her head at his hip. He had not realized she was awake. "What, love?"

"Why didn't you marry some Catholic girl from Dublin?" She fumbled a little to string the words together. "A welder's daughter, who hates the English."

"I might have," he replied, sifting her hair through his fingers, "but I don't think my fiancee would approve."

She went silent for longer than a pause, staring towards the window on the opposite wall. "I bring too much strife to your mind."

He guided her gaze to his. "Why would you say that?"

"Because of who I am, what I am. And because of who you are. Your people wonder how much you've changed and-" She showed an empathetic smile. "You don't say it to me, but I know you must wonder too."

"I'm not much for appeasing others and their prejudices. Besides, who would I be without you?" He slid down, suddenly tired, and aligned with her unfocused eyes. "The room spinning a bit?"

"A bit."

"I'm afraid tomorrow won't be much fun, when it wears off. But, we'll get through it." He kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, love."

He was almost asleep when he heard his name in the dark again. "Do you know, Tom," she said softly, "sometimes I think you are my only real friend in the world. But if you have one- a true friend, who understands and takes your side always and keeps all your secrets, you really needn't want another. I am so very glad it's you."


	57. Chapter 57: Sligo, Part I

_ Thanks so much as ever!_

_I wanted to spend a bit more time with Sybil's new experiences..._

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><p><strong>Mid-June 1919<strong>

"Sybil!" Tom hollered again up the stairs. "Come down quick, I've a surprise for you!"

"Ho, ho, she's got a surprise for you as well!" his mother piped up as she swept around the parlor. He frowned a little at her tone, but inquired no further and continued to tap impatiently on the banister.

"_Coming!_"

Sybil's reply preceded her by a second, as she took a last satisfied look in the mirror and bounded down the stairs. Mrs. Branson leaned on her broom and watched Tom's eyes bug at the sight of her newly-shorn hair bouncing around her face. "Ta-da!" She plumped her bob, preening a little as she caught her reflection on the curio. "Well, what do you think? Do you like it?"

"What did you _do_?" Tom cried.

"What does it _look_ like I did?"

Tom reached a mournful hand to the hewn ends. She looked older- a few years, at least- and _different- _an Earl's daughter no more, but not like his memories of her either: at the inn with her hair down for the first time _this is what it will be like to be married, _Liverpool, the little bed upstairs, first night in the flat _my only_- He could have passed on her the street today and not recognized her. "You hate it," she said unhappily.

He dropped his hand. "It's just very different."

Sybil looked past him to Mrs. Branson. '_He won't like it _,' she had said, a warning which Sybil dismissed. "Yes, it_ is_ different," she agreed. "It's new and exciting!" She launched into her inspiration for the new cut: a nurse she'd seen on St. Stephen's Green, wearing a red-and-black cape and crisp white cap with her hair tucked behind her ears. "If I am going to be a working woman, I'll need a practical haircut like that."

"It makes sense," he conceded, "and it's your hair, you should do what you like, but-"

"There's a 'but' to that?" Her mouth hinted a smile. "How can there possibly be a 'but' to that?"

"It won't be long for the wedding."

He said it so sadly that Sybil almost started to feel regret; then, she recalled the women at the Four Courts. "A lot of the republican women have their hair cut short," she reminded him. She had seen them in their belted uniforms and berets. "It's very progressive."

Mrs. Branson snorted. "Are you a Sinn Feiner now?"

Sybil ignored her. "Well, it's done and I love it. You'll have to learn to like it, or at least like me with it."

"I didn't say I didn't like it," he argued. "I just loved it long, is all. "

"When did _you_ ever see her hair down?" his mother demanded to know.

Tom didn't appreciate being put on the spot, especially on that subject. "Stay out of it, Mam, it's nothing to do with you-"

"Nothing to do with me? Who do you think cut it?" Sybil bit back a smile- Tom clearly hadn't expected that. "Enough on this. Leave her be and don't be such a baby. It's only hair, Tom. For God's sake, it'll grow back. If she lets it." Mrs. Branson resumed cleaning. "Now, didn't you come in here with news?"

"Aye. The paper is sending me up north, to Sligo, to cover a strike tomorrow and I thought I'd take Sybil. Show you some of the country." _Get away from here for awhile. _The frustration of living in his mother's house; they were both more than ready to be together- _alone_- in their own place. Sybil nodded with enthusiasm. "It's just a short trip- we'll be back the next day."

Mrs. Branson straightened. "_Overnight_? At an inn?"

"The paper's sending a photographer with me, so we'll have two rooms," Tom told her. "We're friendly and he doesn't mind- I asked him."

"What about the expense?"

"It's not much expense- just Sybil's train ticket. The paper will cover the rest."

Mrs. Branson turned to Sybil. "Don't you have work to do on your flat?" The answer was in the question, but Sybil rebuffed her with a smile and the remark that it would hold for a day. Out of objections, Mrs. Branson went to check on dinner.

"It'll be nice when we're married and we can take a day-trip without an inquisition, won't it?" Tom said with a roll of his eyes.

"I'll say." Sybil reached for his hand and swung it before venturing, with a sheepish expression, "Do you really hate it?"

"No. Of course not." She smiled back at him and he saw then the same, familiar expression just in a different frame. "I can't believe my mother cut it!"

"She was quite brutal about it too- gathered it all in one hand and _snip_!" She laughed and he thought it terribly cute, how it shook into her eyes and how they both reached to brush it away at the same time. The synchronicity led to a kiss, then a deeper one, both consumed with thoughts of _how wonderful it will be to go away together, _even if for only a short time, after which Sybil asked, "_Two_ rooms?"

"Of course," he replied, coming to kiss her again. "One for him and one for us."

* * *

><p><strong>Amiens Station, Dublin<strong>

Rumors were rampant about a worker's strike at a port in Sligo, but the _Irish Daily_ had received a tip that it was misdirection for Volunteers to attack the British military base there. The beat reporter was unavailable, due to the death of his mother, and Tom had been asked to go and to take Erich Kazun, a photographer who had cut his teeth recording the War. He had grown up the only son of merry widow, a wealthy patroness, and had spent his childhood among artists in the Continent's great cities. He was now in his early thirties, with wild black hair and incredible stories; he was unmarried, though no one wondered why. He was laid-back and forward-minded, and he could not have been more thrilled when Tom asked if he could bring Sybil. "_Please _do! I love women. And men should never be left alone. All they do is start wars and destroy civilization."

Tom and Sybil spied him in the center of the terminal; above him, storm clouds collided in the rooftop panes as Tom reminded her, "Remember, he's a bit of a character."

Erich did not disappoint. He lifted Sybil's hand and kissed it, a noble flourish that was flawlessly executed. _He knows these ways, _she noted. "_Enchante, _Miss Crawley, and may I call you Sybil? I must say, your reputation does _not_ precede you." He nodded toward Tom. "Naughty Tom, you never said she was so lovely. I suppose I can't blame you, we men are all leches." Sybil was quite taken aback by introduction, which Tom watched with amusement. "Please don't take offense," Erich implored. He lowered his voice. "I'm a libertine."

"Oh!" Sybil looked to Tom, but he showed no opinion. "Well... I'm a nurse." Tom coughed to cover his laughter. "And please do call me Sybil, it is my name after all."

"I like your haircut, Sybil," Erich complimented. "You should be in _Vogue_!"

Sybil shot a pointed look at Tom. "I like him already."

Erich squared his hands in the air in front of her and began to narrate: "_A young woman stands in the bustle of a busy train station- a suitcase in her hand, possibility in her eyes... and a modern haircut to tell the world she has shed its old_ ways." A few travellers had stopped to listen._ "The face of the future!_"

Tom grinned. "I'd buy twenty copies of that magazine."

"Wait-" Sybil rifled through her purse. "I have a photograph... look!" She removed it from a leather holder and handed it to Erich. "That's my mother in New York Harbor on her way to England," she explained as he inspected it. "She's American. She left when she was nineteen."

"I see the resemblance. Do you always carry it with you?"

"I do when I travel." She shrugged, now a bit embarrassed. "I don't know. I just like having it with me."

"Hold still." Erich dropped his shoulder bag and retrieved his box camera, as Tom stole a look at the clock. "We don't have time to assemble the real one. But I think we'll be fine without flash powder in here." He pointed at the Departures Board. "Don't look at me," he instructed her. "Look up."

She did- and her hat, without her up-do to rest on, started to slip. Her hand flew to hold it in place and he snapped the shutter, capturing the moment, the limitlessness, as Sybil looked up at the train departures and beyond that, the clock and beyond that, the clouds and a wide white sky that went everywhere. "The face of the future," Tom heard Erich murmur from behind the lens. He lowered the camera. "I'm a bit envious," he confessed, as he knelt down to repack. "I think change might really be here for young women. The Irish too."

"Are you waiting for change?" Sybil asked.

"Aren't we all?" He showed her a wistful smile. "It'll make a grand photo," Erich told them. "Perhaps someday, your daughter will carry it with her."

* * *

><p><strong>County Sligo, the northwest coast<strong>

"So it seems the tip was bad, eh?" Tom commented as the end-of-day whistle blew. The three of them stood, hands on the chain-link fence around the yard, as workers trudged out, weary but orderly. He turned to Erich. "Now what?"

"We follow them, straight to the pub," Erich commanded the trio, "where we shall make the most of your first _per diem_!"

The _per diem_ paid for a lively dinner and extra rounds of ale, as Sybil and Tom listened, rapt, to Erich's travels in recent history: Ypres and the gas canisters; Moscow, the night the lights went out; a midnight ride down the Bosphorus, stowed away in a cargo boat en route to the Dardanelles. Tom felt Sybil stiffen beside him at the mention of the battle site- "_I'd rather prison than the Dardanelles!_" from that dark time when he was certain his life was soon to be ended, in one place or another, and he had almost hated her. "_Why do you care_?" he had wanted to say and might have, if he thought it would elicit some- _any_- response. He had almost hated her for her interminable silence and because he still harbored some stupid hope that she would marry him, one day; had almost hated her because she is the only one he had ever wanted to marry, would ever want to marry as long as she and he walked the earth.

Her hand sought his under the table. _It's as if she knows_. They were always connected. He squeezed it.

The conversation continued. They talked of the current unrest in Turkey, whose people Tom proudly called "_our brothers in arms_" against British colonialism. The world had woken up, they decided, and anything was possible now, except the continuation of the world as it was. They all agreed it was a wonderful time to be alive, to see what change may come. "I believe there will be a day when it won't matter that I'm English and Protestant and Tom's Irish and Catholic," Sybil said with conviction. "And I believe it will be in our lifetime. I really do."

"Money will always matter," Tom countered.

"It didn't stop you," she said pointedly, to which Tom grinned. It was a private comment and neither made an effort to explain it to Erich; he went to settle the bill. Sybil looked at Tom, then anywhere but at him. "A nice smile will always matter," she demurred. Their hands were still entwined. "And so will character. And love."

"And the rest is detail?"

"So I hear," she smiled.

"People of the future, I have news!" Erich boomed from the bar. "The word on the street is, the dance hall is open!"

* * *

><p>The dance hall was a converted barn on the backside of the main street, with a dirt floor and lightbulbs strung across the rafters. The floor was packed, a kaleidoscope of open jackets and homemade dresses and conversation shouted over the sounds of "The St. Joseph's Temperance Band" playing with abandon on a raised platform at the front. Sybil had not been to a dance since her debut; there had been a few dances, for soldiers on leave, that some of the nurses had attended, but that had been deemed<em> out of the question <em>for her_. _Her family would see this as barely better than a brothel, but all she saw was that everyone was young, happy, and _alive_.

"Can you dance?" Tom shouted to her.

"Very well, in fact." He cupped his ear. "_Very well in fact_!" They watched, two line dances before a couple's dance started. "Can you?"

"_What_?"

"Can _you_ dance?"

"What sort of man do you think you're marrying?"

"Why don't you show me?"

"I can't hear you!"

As Sybil had been coached that "_a lady draws men nearer to her with the softness of her voice," _she took particular satisfaction in shouting back to Tom, "_Show me_!"

She offered her hand, which he accepted; and then, with one impish motion, he drew her flush with him. "That's how _we_ dance."

"'A vertical expression of horizontal desire,'" Erich quoted. "Robert Frost must have had lovebirds like you in mind when he said it!"

They danced- and stomped and clapped and shouted and laughed and sang out when the band leader told them to- for hours in the hot, sweaty hall. Sybil didn't know any of the dances, she stepped on Tom's feet and turned the wrong way on occasion, but Tom was impressed with how quickly she picked it up. Regardless, she had a ball. Truth be told, he found it a little hokey- he hadn't danced since his youth and the halls in Dublin were more sophisticated- but he loved to see Sybil enjoy it so much. It made him realize she probably hadn't had much of a youth, at least not any sort that would be recognizable to him.

They went out once for air and were surreptitiously offered a canteen with a whispered, "Drink with the devil?"

"_Poitín,_" Tom translated for his foreign companions. "It's nearly-pure alcohol." He stole a nip and passed it to Sybil. "Be careful, you- the name doesn't lie. That stuff will kill you if you drink too much."

"Are you the sort of woman who drinks too much?" Erich wanted to know.

"I have been known to be so on occasion."

She took a swig and handed the canteen to Erich, who laughed. "Sybil, I like you more and more."

* * *

><p>At an hour and a quarter to midnight, the music was cut off and the hall cleared while matronly chaperone yelled from the steps to: "<em>Get yer selves home and pray to the Holy Mother to forgive you all your sinning tonight<em>!"

"It's not even eleven yet!" Erich groused as they stumbled out into the road. "Damn Catholic country." The cool ocean air slapped their damp skin. Dizzy and exhilarated, not wanting to go to bed and for wont of another destination, they set off for the coast.

Sybil latched onto Tom's arm. "Tom," she started seriously, "you don't ask the Holy Mother to forgive _you_, do you?"

"The Holy Mother? I'm supposed to tell it to a priest!"

"But you _don't, _though- right?"

"I'll have to confess myself before the wedding, of course. We can't be married if I don't." Sybil faltered; Tom stole a wink at Erich. "I hope Father Fahey doesn't make me confess to him. I mean, I'd have to tell him how you started it and well, it might make it awkward at the ceremony, don't you think?"

She stopped dead. "Are you quite serious?"

Tom cracked up at her mortified expression. "Of course not! Do you really think I'd talk about _that_ to _him_?" He tried to apologize, but botched it with, "What are you so worried about? The priests already think you're going to Hell for being a Protestant."

"I'm going to Hell too, Sybil," Erich told her. "I've found it to be quite liberating!"

* * *

><p>They walked on, passing the stone-walled inn that sat in shadow, high and to one side, and continued down the inclined path until the sea stretched out before them. The night sky was unfurled into the water, a seamless blue-black curtain marked only by moth-eaten stars and their reflections. The three of them sat on the grass and watched the waves blast the cliffs. It was windy and cold, but no one wanted to fetch the coats. Tom took off his jacket and draped it around Sybil's shoulders. "Come sit closer," he urged, "and let me keep you warm." She acceded, climbing into his lap and letting him wrap her in his arms. "Forgive me?"<p>

"Yes." She kissed him on the mouth to prove it.

Erich reclined on his elbows. "The innkeeper told me these cliffs are rife with spirits. Shipwrecks, men lost at sea, a beautiful girls who walked on water to meet them." Inspiration struck him. "Have either of you ever done a seance, called the spirits of the dead?"

"My sister Edith and I tried it once."

"Did it work?"

"No. It wasn't a minute before she screamed and we were separated and sent to bed."

"What about you, Tom?"

"I've not, and I plan to keep it that way. I'm not interested in conjuring dead girls or their drowned seamen."

"Don't be a spoilsport," Sybil clucked.

"Who should we contact?" Erich went on. "A dead soldier? An old friend from the war?"

Sybil shook her head. "I won't do that. It's disrespectful."

"How about George Washington," Tom suggested. "Ask him how to beat the English."

"Does the person need to have died here for it to work?" Sybil asked Erich.

"Probably. We'll find out." They didn't have candles, but the moon was bright. "I have cigarettes."

"Will they work?"

"They'll work for smoking," he quipped as he lit one. Sybil accepted it. "Where does a posh girl like you pick up smoking?"

"How do you know I'm posh?"

He took a drag. "For starters, you didn't deny it."

"Working at a war hospital." Sybil smiled wanly. "It helped on the bad days." Tom watched her as she stared out into the distance; she had never told him that. He assumed it was another act of rebellion or assimilation. And _the bad days... _he was around for some of them- for _most_ of them- but now he wondered how much she had kept to herself.

They smoked in silence until Sybil asked, "Is it hard being a libertine?"

"Oh, I don't know." Erich flicked some ash. "It's just what I am."

"It's hard being a woman," she opined. "It's not a crime, of course, but it is hard nonetheless. I think so, anyway." And for the second time in as many minutes, Tom was surprised by what she revealed.

"It's not so much hard," Erich considered thoughtfully, "as it is lonely."

Sybil showed a small smile. "That too." She stubbed out her cigarette in the damp soil and returned to Tom. "But I don't feel that way anymore because I've found love. Have you?"

"Not yet. But I've found fun and that's almost as good."

"I think Thomas might have been a libertine." _Was there anyone who thought otherwise?_ Tom wondered. "All the nurses thought him handsome, but he never fancied any of them. And he was certainly no randy soldier. I found that out firsthand!" she chuckled.

Tom didn't get the reference. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't tell you?" Sybil turned her face up to him. "About the storage closet and my underclothes."

"Your _underclothes_?"

"I'm sure I told you when it happened."

"I am sure you didn't tell me any story about you and your underclothes."

Sybil shrugged. "Thomas and I were on a shift and some acid got knocked down the front of my uniform. It was starting to soak through the fabric, so I went into the storage closet and took it off while Thomas went to fetch me a new one."

"You were naked in a closet with Thomas Barrow?"

"No, of course not. He gave me his jacket to wear."

"You were nearly naked in a closet with Thomas Barrow?"

"I had my knickers on, Tom! And a corset."

"In a closet, wearing only your knickers, a corset and Thomas Barrow's military jacket?"

"That's right."

"Holy hell!"

"I think you might have dropped your jaw in the grass there, Tom!" Erich teased.

"It wasn't quite the salacious scene you imagine," Sybil laughed. "It was a _closet_, you know, with mops and supplies. It smelled like bleach. And I don't think Thomas is much interested in women's knickers."

"I can't stand Barrow! Not because he's a libertine, just 'cause."

"Sounds like you're pretty lucky he is a libertine," Erich pointed out. "You never know what could have happened!"

"He was a perfect gentleman. Don't listen to Tom," she told Erich. "Thomas is my friend."

"Handsome and not interested in women's knickers? He sounds like my sort."

"Maybe! I wish we could scheme to get him over for the wedding. If Matthew were coming, I bet we could."

"I don't like him, but even if I did, I'd like to be the only person in the church who's seen the bride in her knickers, thank you.""

"Oh, Tom!" Sybil laughed. "Don't be such a fuddy-duddy. Who cares who's seen whose knickers?"

"I daresay Tom, she talks like a bohemian!"

Sybil turned in Tom's arms. He regarded her, short hair and all. "Are you a bohemian?"

"I don't know." She smiled at him. "Maybe. Would you still love me if I were?"

"Yes. God help us both."

Under the starry sky, Erich started to recite Ezra Pound, whom neither of them had ever heard of:

_Sing we for love and idleness,_

_Naught else is worth the having._

Erich pushed himself up. "Come on, let's drink in my room."


	58. Chapter 58: Sligo, Part II

_ Thank you so much as always!_

_So this chapter got too long and I can't break up the other stuff... so here's a little entr'acte. _

_More to come soon._

* * *

><p>It was well after midnight and Erich was stretched out on the bed with a pillow shoved behind his back, an unlabeled rapidly-diminishing bottle of vodka beside his lap. "A parting gift from a Russian soldier who defected to join the Revolution," he told Tom as he refilled the mugs they were using as tumblers. Tom was sitting on the floor across from the bed with Sybil reclined against him, drinking smuggled French table wine straight from the bottle. Erich and Tom had spent an hour taking apart Erich's cameras so Tom could see how they worked; and for the past two hours, Erich had been picking Tom's brain on all subjects other than Irish politics. (Presently, it was whether Governor Smith of New York would run for president. Tom thought so, but America would never elect a Catholic.)<p>

"This man!" Erich exclaimed. "How do you know so much?"

"I don't know. I read a lot," Tom demurred, but Sybil knew he was pleased to have impressed Erich who had studied at the Sorbonne. "It's all in the papers."

"Is there any subject on which you _don't_ have an opinion?"

Tom made a show of stroking his chin before declaring, "I don't have an opinion on the ballet."

"Yes, you do. You're a great fan," Sybil refuted with a nudge. "Especially of the _Ballets Russes. _Famous for their harem costumes...?"

They laughed and this time, let Erich in on the joke. "You should always just ask her," Tom advised. "She knows my opinions better than I do."

"I should- I've listened to them enough!" Sybil quipped. It was fun to "play couple"- for once, to a non-hostile audience; Erich thought they were naturals at it- kind and inclusive of each other in conversation, ever full of praise, but unafraid to keep the other honest. As he watched Tom take her hand upon his knee, and she smile up at him, he revised his earlier declaration: _perhaps not almost as good_.

"At any rate, I stand corrected," Tom concluded. "As she said, I am a great fan of the ballet."

"I'll be sure to inform the Arts Editor," Erich teased.

"I'll tell you the assignment I want-" Tom leaned forward with excitement- "Alcock and Brown! They're scheduled to fly from Canada to Ireland this month. Across the Atlantic in a single day! Hell, the trip from Dublin to Galway will take half that."

Sybil straightened. "Go to Galway on the eve of our wedding? I don't think so!"

"Maybe they'd fly me back to Dublin," Tom speculated. "I could parachute into the church- wouldn't that be romantic?"

"Yes, it'll be very romantic when my father murders you for leaving me at the altar!"

This imagining set off a charged, silent conversation between them, during which Tom appeared to be considering any number of retorts other than the mild statement of fact, "He'd hardly murder me for that._" _

The tension was too palpable to politely ignore. "Your father isn't so keen on your marriage?" Erich asked. This did not surprise him, as it was obvious Sybil came from money and equally obvious that Tom did not. He reached for his cigarettes.

Tom snorted. "_No_."

"He shook your hand," she reminded him.

"How many letters as he sent you here?"

"He's a busy man, Tom!" She ran a hand through her hair. "Anyway, I'll see him in two weeks."

"Speaking of murder, wait till he sees _you_." He flicked one short strand and predicted, with no small amount of admiration, "He's going to hit the roof!"

"Worse than you?" she smirked before informing Erich, "Tom hates my haircut."

Erich laughed at Tom's protestations- "I _don't_ hate it"- and lit up. "Sybil, have you ever heard of Sylvia Beach?" Sybil shook her head. "She runs a bookstore on the Left Bank and she has the same haircut. It was terribly scandalous." He tossed the pack down to her. "Come to Paris, I'll introduce you."

Tom struck the match and Sybil regarded him as she inhaled. "I like Paris, but I'm not sure Tom would." Before he could ask why, she offered to show them "_my most excellent trick_." And for her captive audience, she proceeded to blow three smoke rings in perfectly-spaced succession.

The men applauded. "Brilliant, Sybil! Well done!"

"Thank you and _merci,"_ she accepted with a little bow. "Thomas taught me. It took half a day to master, but I'm still ace at it!" Erich wanted her to teach him, so Sybil got on her knees at the end of the bed and instructed- "_You do it with your tongue, just drag it_"- as Tom shifted behind her.

He tried not to think about it, but ever since the last time he thought about it _all the time_. At work, on the tram, every odd minute today, definitely on the sofa at home. He had hoped that after the breaking the seal, so to speak, in his old bedroom that it might become a nightly thing. In actuality, it had become a never-since thing; she never offered and he never asked. He wondered if she was mad at him, or if he had scared her off a bit with what had happened during the encore consummation that night. _We never talked about it_. But she'd been just as sweet to him since- sweet _and_ eager to come away. And she was upset when he'd said two rooms; she wanted to be alone together. She had already surprised him multiple times tonight, as he watched another cloudy ring take flight. It was probably time to turn in...

"So tell me," Erich went on, foiling Tom's escape plan, "a posh girl picks up smoking working at a war hospital, but where does she pick up an Irish Catholic journalist?"

Sybil sat back with an uneasy glance at Tom, unaware of how much of their story he had disclosed to his colleagues. "I worked for her father."

Erich had not expected that. "As an aide?"

"No." Tom wasn't ashamed of his previous profession- no small achievement for someone of his station- but it was hard to say to people like Erich who were born upper-class and didn't know that. "I was his chauffeur. He's an Earl."

"_Mon Dieu._" Erich was stunned. "I figured you were rich- I didn't realize you had noble blood." Sybil's face darkened at that as her hand came protectively over Tom's. "No wonder your father-"

"It's not what he wanted," she cut him off. "But we've agreed to disagree."

Erich chortled. "I don't think it works like that. The Emperor and his daughter can't '_agree to disagree_' that he wears no clothes," he opined. "Nor can the Emperor's daughter say to the the world that the ruling class is a joke."

"I _didn't_ say that."

"Well, you didn't need to." Erich leaned over to his suitcase, open on the floor, and began rummaging through it. "For what it's worth, I think it's admirable and I agree. Damn, I'm out of fags! Who wants opium?"

"_Opium_?"

"Have you tried it?"

"No..." Sybil sounded vaguely intrigued.

"Do you want to?"

Tom jumped to answer for them both. "_No,_ we don't."

"Opium will give you night terrors. We had a captain who used to wake up screaming he was being strangled by his shoelaces," Sybil recounted. "They say he made too many visits to the opium dens in Pigalle."

"Ah, Pigalle! No one would frown on your scandalous hair and smoking there, _ma cherie. _You can do _anything_- and then some- there." Tom rolled his eyes. "But I think you're right. I don't think Tom would much like Paris."

"If Paris means degeneration and libertinism, I doubt I would."

"What about a votary of Venus?"

"What's that?"

Erich, ever the provocateur, tipped his head as he explained, "It's not libertines- its women. As in, several women. At the same time." Sybil was very amused by Erich's apologies to her-"_Mes excuses, ma cherie"- _and her decidedly not intrigued fiance. "I first encountered it in Constantinople, it's very popular there. Not with me, obviously. But with more traditional, family men," he finished, the last line full of disdain.

"Well, I'm only one man," Tom responded with equal disgust, "so one woman will do just fine for me."

Erich crossed his arms and sized up Tom. "You do draw curious distinctions," he observed. "Alcohol is permissible, but opium is not. You frown on extra-marital relations-" Erich chose his next words carefully- "but not the ones you have with Sybil, to whom you are not married."

That was not for Erich to comment on, Tom thought, but Sybil pre-empted his upbraiding. "Oh, don't posture. It's not like it's untrue."

"We're practically married," Tom countered. "We'll be married in two weeks."

"So what? God didn't say, 'Obey these Commandments' except when _you_ decide to make an exception. Same for the Church, same for the law. If you really believed in them, you'd follow them to the letter," Erich said. "I am a libertine, I exist in contravention of the law so, therefore, I do not believe in the Law."

"So everyone who's not an absolutist should be an anarchist?" Tom countered. "That's ridiculous."

"Why?"

"Because a society is a collection of people who have agreed to live by the same rules and respect the same authorities. Indeed, that's all civilization is."

"Oh Tom, it pains me to hear someone so intelligent speak so _bourgeois_!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It is the trademark of the bourgeoisie to support just enough revolt to keep them fatted and in the latest fashions. Revolution is bad for business, you said so yourself. Don't become complacent now just because you're getting a bit of coin from the _Daily Status Quo_."

It surprised Tom to hear Erich disparage the newspaper they worked for, but he was too hotly engaged in the debate to dwell on it. "I'm not complacent, I'm political- a socialist and a republican. But I'm no anarchist. I believe _in_ things."

"You say 'respect authorities' exactly as some of your more craven countrymen say 'accept British rule of Ireland!'"

"We _do_ 'accept' British rule. Dublin Castle's still standing, is it not? An anarchist would blow it up. Great, but what do you do tomorrow? And the next day?" Tom challenged. "A citizen uses persuasion, the press, the vote to change the power structure. It's not perfect, but that's the price of a civilized world."

"Do we live in a civilized world?" Sybil wondered. "War isn't very civilized."

"An excellent point, Sybil," Erich chimed in.

"Unjust, unequal- sure," Tom conceded, "but _uncivilized_? I don't think so, Syb. We're not sitting here worried about Mongols sacking the inn and putting our heads on pikes. The very fact we have a body politic is proof we've advanced beyond brute survival."

"But wasn't that the soldiers' lot, to sit around and wait to be killed?" Sybil asked him. _Or the people at Kingsbridge Station._ She wondered if Liam had told Tom about that.

"I can't say," Tom dismissed with a shrug. "I never went to war."

A shadow fell over Sybil's face which Tom, looking forward, did not catch. But Erich did. She seemed stricken and deeply, irrevocably sad and he reckoned they had successfully conjured the dead tonight. "As ever, we shall let the poets have the last word. To wit, a verse-:

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_  
><em>Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,<em>  
><em>The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<em>  
><em>The ceremony of innocence is drowned<em>

"It's new work of a poet you might have heard of Tom, a one W.B. Yeats."

"You don't have to tell me about Yeats," Tom laughed. "He's an Irishman, a _real_ poet."

"'_A real poet_,'" Sybil hooted. "Not like that Shakespeare fellow!"

"Or Blake or Goethe," Erich added. "Cicero. Thoreau."

"Ah, I suppose they were alright-" Tom flashed a goading grin- "if you factor in the handicap of birthplace!"

Erich groaned. "Thump him on the head, would you Sybil, for us and all the maligned poets of the world?"

"Gladly!" She raised a hand, but he was too quick, and seized both her wrists. "This won't end well for you," he warned. "Don't throw a punch if you're not prepared to take one. It's the first rule of boxing."

"A loser's rule," she muttered as she struggled and Tom had a sudden flash of the Dowager Countess- _will she be like that when we're old,_ firing opinions like cannonballs and jabbing him with a cane. He cracked up at the mental picture and, in his weakness and under her pressure, he buckled and she toppled down on top of him. "Aha!" she cried triumphantly and bopped him on the head. "That's for Albion!"

"Ireland, cowed again by the British," Tom bemoaned from beneath Sybil, who was poised over him like a retriever, her fists on his chest. "Have you a verse for this?"

Erich shook his head with a chuckle. "There's nothing metaphorical about this." Sybil flushed bright red and quickly rose off Tom. "It's a horizontal expression, period."

"It is very late-" Tom started to say.

"I don't know about late, but it is certainly time for bed!" Erich quipped with a wave. "_Bonne nuit, _lovebirds_."_


	59. Chapter 59: Sligo, Part III

_Thanks as ever for the kind reviews!_

* * *

><p>Barely able to see in the blackness, they fumbled back to their room. Tom led the way with one hand to the wall of callous and chalky stone that was rough on his palm. Sybil held onto his free hand, her touch made outsize by the dark. The lock on the door was temperamental and she wasn't helping, teetering on her toes behind him, hands braced at his sides, issuing throaty instructions in his ear about <em>how to do it<em>.

They had left for the train station at 7am, it was now almost 3am. It had taken twenty hours to get here. He actually sighed when the lock acquiesced.

The room was tight and rustic with only a bed, a wash table, a lean bureau, and an off-kilter mirror clouded with age. One square, unpaned window sat high on the wall, its red shutter open, aerating the space with the tang of the damp rock and flowering moss beyond. _There's something about the land in Ireland_, even for a child of bucolic Yorkshire; it was _alive_- the word she continually returned to to describe this country, _my home too now_- and the night lived too, the air twitching with season and myth.

He dropped his jacket on the chair near the door as she turned on the lone dim lamp then turned to him, a musical movement in the dusky light, and smiled, not quite shy, red breaking apart the night again. "You have wine on your mouth." He reached to touch it, her lips parting to his fingerprints. And then, after twenty hours, she kissed him, pulling him closer to her-_ like last time_- and he was sure she wanted what he wanted, just as much and now-

But no, she broke away with a blithe, "I think I'll change."

He would have liked to do it for her, to push the sleeves slowly down her arms and kiss every place it revealed, but he wasn't sure if it was a come-on. "Do you need help?"

"No," she answered with pride in her voice, for she could put on and take off her new clothes herself. "I don't."

She turned from him, reaching for the button behind her collar, as he stood and watched as the cool radiated from the stones. He recalled another room- at the cottage, the first time she'd visited, when she had walked around like an otherworldly creature in finery he could never afford and he worried _what must she think_?

He worried now. Especially after the last time.

She had started it, in Liverpool, but four times later, she had still never ventured to touch him, never really looked at him, never used her voice except to answer a question he asked, adjusted exactly as he advised. It wasn't a complaint- God knows how he'd hoped and angsted and prayed over it- and he wouldn't trade one minute they'd spent, but it'd be a lie to say that any of his many fantasies were this variation of teaching Lady Edith how to drive. She was pleasing and restrained in their intimate encounters and, truth be told, it unsettled him.

Maybe that was unfair; she had mostly shed those ways- _ever more with that hair,_ he chuckled- and she was still so new at this. But he wanted so badly to be with _Sybil_- who corrected him and bossed about the key; who hiked home covered in mud and threatened to boil her horse, who jostled the crowd at the count; who burned her bridges and ran for the border and won over a bar of workingmen with her spirit and a well-timed _feck off_. He wanted that fire and friction and freedom, that determination, even the selfishness, temper and vanity that had all somehow been captured in one wild heart. That heart that had captured him- captured him and wrestled him to the floor in triumph, to a tune the poets wrote.

There were moments when it glowed: unwavering beside the bed in Liverpool and then _let's get to it_ or when she'd invited him into the bath. And the last time, when he'd tried to say goodnight but she'd held him there and kissed him. Kissed him the way she only ever did afterward, as if she couldn't bear to be apart. It was hot and sticky under the blankets, clothes on but pushed aside, in that stuffy room with no space between them. His fingers were fending her still-long hair from catching in their mouths and it smelled like sex and the summer of 1914- _Jesus, what's happened _since he had first put his lips to her ear and set this all in motion- and _Holy Christ _her hips were rising up to his, searching out that known unknown of Howth. And since he was evidently _not_ tired, and since she'd said that it didn't hurt at all anymore, he reclaimed her nightdress in his fists and swallowed her slender cry of surprise- "Oh_ feck-_ Sybil- feck_-"_

Those few furious minutes were the first time he had really exorcised his five years of self-imposed celibacy, had really been with Sybil with abandonment of mind, with only pure emotion and lust, and let the stars come to him, _to us._ It was incredible and he felt closer than ever to her, as if they had just breached the last castle wall between them. But when he lifted his dizzied head, he saw her face erased of its own expression, a cold imperiousness in its place. He was ready to die for her after that- or at the very least, carve her name over his heart with a dull knife- and all she said was, "There are some towelettes in the bottom drawer. Could you hand me one, please?" He lumbered out of bed and lumbered back, handed her what she requested as she straightened the blanket around her. She thanked him curtly, then- "You better go. We probably woke your mother with all the commotion"- and he understood that he was dismissed.

He felt terrible as he descended the stairs, worse as he laid awake on the sofa. That was not how one made love to a lady- it might be fine for welders' daughters, or Irish girlfriends, or women who lived below stairs, but not Lady Sybil. She had chosen him to be the only man she would love that way, it was an honor and a responsibility- he certainly wouldn't want anyone else to have it- and he couldn't be prouder or more pleased that her initiation had been safe and kind. He knew enough of the world to know that was not often the case, it might even be the exception, and it meant everything to him that he could provide that for her, it really did. But now, he had just confirmed every caricature her people believed about the lower classes: that it wasn't just their status, but their blood that was baser. She had walked around his cottage and it had almost been his only moment of doubt- _we're too far apart, we can never be reconciled; _the ugliness and poverty of that room_- what must she see when she looks at this? _It broke his heart that she might look at this last time and see degradation.

But the next morning, she seemed fine- not Crawley "_fine_," just fine- and then when she'd had too much to drink, she had pulled at him, at his clothes, and called him her only real friend in the world. So perhaps she was fine with it? He hoped she was, but he had another suspicion:

_"Is there a better way to show you...?"_

_"What do you want?"_

_"Do you want to?"_

It was soon, and she was new at it, but even in Howth, when he tried to show her that this brave new beautiful thing wasn't about him or even about them, sometimes it could just be about her, he wondered if she'd gone along with it because he wanted her to.

"Hey, Syb?"

She turned to him. "Yes?" Her collar hung loose around her clavicle.

"We never talked about it..." he faltered, hands finding his pockets, "but uh, the last time. Was it alright?"

"Wonderful," came the cursory reply, like a waiter complimenting his choice. And right on cue- "Didn't you think so?"

"Of course." She smiled at that, and he found it hard to smile back. "I think I'll wash up. I'm a bit ripe after the dancing." He turned from her, the unanswered question still troubling his mind.

He had not seen how, the last time, she had laid her head down on the pillow afterward and smiled. Not at first, of course. It had been a shock, to hear the word that the soldiers invoked liberally to describe what they had done to girls in Paris and Pigalle and what they would like to do to the younger nurses, including her. She had hated it. Hated that they drafted her without consent into their minds, hated that captain who used to say it in earshot and always asked her if she had a beau. He was a pig and a lout and if Thomas ever heard what he'd said to her- God, if _Tom_ ever heard- he'd wish he'd been killed at the front; the German artillery would have been far more merciful. But he knew, as well as she did, the nurses' code: _be_ _a professional,__ do your job_, _don't be a baby about it_. So she hated it silently and hated more that it made her like less the job she loved.

Upon consideration, it was not the same. Tom certainly wasn't a lout and he hadn't meant to embarrass her. He had been overcome, overawed even. _He was actually shaking at the end_. That was completely unexpected; she had never imagined a man could be made all quivery like that. Had she done that? She must have had some part in it. But that was the prerogative of fabled women- Cleopatra, Helen- to drive men out of their minds with desire and the idea that she might bear any resemblance to them in this blooming white cotton nightdress- had Mama sized it for an elephant?- crumpled and wilting around her hips, where he'd left it, seemed impossible.

But she had started it. He had wanted to leave and she had made him stay. She smiled. And after that, she cut her hair.

She stepped out of her dress now, realizing she hadn't closed the shutter, but neither had he. _He doesn't care, _he used to make love in a park, she thought. But then- hadn't she too, in Howth? She could use the footstool under the window to take down her stockings. _I don't care either_. Water was pouring into the basin behind her, in the opposite corner of the room. "Do you really think he's smoking opium?"

"Dunno."

"I like him." She wondered if he was watching her and if she should be less efficient. "But he does have some batty ideas."

Tom snorted. "I'll say."

She turned around, intending solidarity- she knew Tom was miffed about the bourgeois comment and he must have been biting his tongue all night- but when she saw him, half-naked, skin tanned by the hue of the room and slicked with water, she forgot her intentions. She watched him, enviably at ease, as he ran a cold cloth over his shoulders, his arms. She had once taken shelter in cold water, the first time he had ever touched her like that. It was less than a year ago, when she was still shadow-boxing with that thing she could not name, when she knew nothing. She knew its character now- it was an abrasion that could not be unfelt any more than a sunburn or a rash or an open wound- and knew too that it was a battle she could never have won.

_Did he feel like this all those years_?

She watched him now, remembering the twisted look on his face when she had told the closet story earlier; now it did not seem funny but familiar, reminiscent of all those times she had come around and remained silent, come around and left.

"Hey, Tom?"

Her tone demanded he turn to her, so he did and-

_Holy hell_.

There she stood, wearing his jacket, which he'd discarded in the chair, and little else. _Albion wins again, _he thought and her face showed she knew it too_. _"What's this?"

She shrugged a shoulder and smiled. "Can't have you being jealous of Thomas."

She stood where she was and he came to her, from the opposite side of the bed around to the front. If there was one thing he knew about his soon-to-be wife, it's that she needed time to come to things on her own terms. _She'll come around when she's ready, she knows her own mind _and he wouldn't want it any other way. And he needn't have worried; Sybil- his Sybil- was right there.

He sank onto the bed and beckoned her, hands first then her mouth hot on his. Kissing, he urged her onto his lap, his lapels falling open to reveal her latest utilitarian purchase. "A brassiere," she boasted as he paused to inspect it. "It's worn in place of a corset."

"I know." He touched the fabric, sand-colored with a sheen. "Satin. Is it also from France?"

"Sateen," she corrected him and flinched at how snobbish it sounded. "I got it at that store that's taken Clery's business. Half a pound from the basement."

"I knew you weren't wearing a corset when we danced." When he'd put his hand on the small of her back, he could feel her- not like when they'd climbed the stairs in Liverpool, not like plaster of Paris in the cottage- just her, warm and sinuous beneath damp dress. "I've never seen one on a woman before."

He kissed her and she kissed back even harder and more unbound like the last time except tonight it was salty and bitter, burnt with tobacco and wine. She quickly discovered he was not nearly as enthralled by the brassiere as he was by what was laid bare... _what would it be like if that hand were here now with no one awake to know-_

"Wait, wait, Tom-"

"What?"

She hedged. "Like this?"

"Yeah, like that once in garage- remember? Except I won't try to push you off this time." He showed a wicked grin and started hunting around her neck. One hand threaded through his hair, tightening when she did, and she could smell in it the seawater that had carried up to the shore. "You might even find you prefer it. You like to boss me a bit."

"Tom, I- I don't-" Her words were ambivalent and her body was in contravention of them, butterflied around him, begging for attention. "We shouldn't..." But he didn't abate, just pulled her closer, flush with him. _Jesus- _as he'd once exclaimed when she'd done it to him. This part always felt wonderful and the rest got exponentially better each time. "_You might even find you prefer it._" Should she be put off? _But why_? And why should she stop it,_ if that's what he wants_? But men can't control their appetites, _man is a sexual creature_; that fell to women, the creatures of virtue. Or something. Either way, it could not all be permissible. She jerked back. "Tom, _stop_. No."

He stopped- abruptly- and raised his hands in surrender. "What did I do?" She was silent- it wasn't something one could really explain- and he sized her up. "I haven't really shocked you, have I? You said you'd heard all about it at the hospital."

"I did hear a lot of talk from the soldiers," she clarified with annoyance, "but Tom- those women were _paid._" She cringed when she said it; she'd hoped he wouldn't make her say it plain. He still didn't understand. "You probably don't want to think of your wife like that."

He burst out laughing. "Well, that's true- I definitely don't want to _think_ about it!"

"_Tom_-"

"_Sybil._ Do you mean to tell me you're not a prostitute? Good Lord, what goes on in that head of yours?" He took her face in his hands. "You want to know what I think? I think we love each other any way we choose to express it."

She was cool to that and demurred, "You can't know what you'll think until it happens."

"Tell me you didn't want to and we can end the conversation now." She met his eyes, but not his challenge. "Can I speak honestly?"

"I wouldn't want you to speak any other way."

"If there's one thing you learned at the hospital, it's that everyone, no matter their station, pisses and shits and bleeds and fecks, even if they put on airs like they don't. We all came into the world the same way, didn't we? There's only been one Immaculate Conception- if you're wondering what people are doing when they're not passing judgment or telling others how to behave. Your parents, the King and Queen and their parents, your Granny-"

"Ugh, Tom- vile!" she snickered.

He turned serious. "Look, I suppose a woman has to decide if she wants it to be a duty or a pleasure, but if she's going to do it all the same, why not make it a pleasure? It's nobody's business how we are with each other. And you needn't worry, I won't mistake you for any other woman. I know who you are."

It hit her funny, that last sentence, until she realized he was the only person in the world who could have said it in truth- _you do. You do know_. She suddenly needed to hug him. "Thanks for that," she said into his shoulder and he heard the emotion she tried to hide- she was no crier, after all- and kissed her temple. "Hey, Tom?"

"What?"

She pulled back, perfect self-possession restored. "I just wonder," she started, voice sly, "if you'd let me finish what I started?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to?"

"You know I'm no quitter," she quipped, with a shake of her hair.

"That wasn't the question." He was kind but resolute. "Do you want to- not for me, but for yourself?"

"Yes," she answered him. "I do." It was difficult for her to say it- she was not a talker either- but he believed her. "Besides, it'd be a terrible waste of your jacket."

They both laughed. "Jesus, Sybil, when I turned around-" He shook his head as he thumbed the lapels- "you're lucky it wasn't me in that closet. The Holy Mother would've gotten an earful."

"Will she get one tonight?" It was very soft and he looked up with surprise- she was staring back at him, sultry and sweet, and he knew he hadn't misheard her and it wasn't a quip, but a question. _Holy __hell_.

He wrapped his arms around her waist. "You know, this how I always imagined us." He hadn't been sure he should say it, and it elicited an expression of mild scandal until he explained, "It's the only way I can hold you too."

She considered, then smiled. "I didn't think about that."

He smiled back. "I know you didn't."

She leaned down and kissed him and it quickly started again without interruption or misgivings or words even until he said, as she was about to cast it all off:

"Oh, no- keep the jacket on."


	60. Chapter 60: Sligo Part IV

_Thanks as ever for the reviews!_

_A/N: Some reflection on death- has nothing to do with certain plot twists in certain bad televised fics._

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><p>"You do realize," he started convivially and the words rattled and scraped like pebbles unsettled on a beach; sometimes, when they were alone like this, she had to strain to understand him and then she remembered he had been trained to fake his English for people like her, "that at some point, you'll have to move. I can help, but I can't bench press you!"<p>

She didn't catch his meaning- _must be Dublin slang_- but tittered nonetheless, as her hips shifted in his hands. She had asked to do it, but it was proving to be a painfully literal case of easier said than done. She did not feel the heated abandonment of passion or even the lukewarm satisfaction of boldness- she felt, truthfully, a little grotesque. "I'm not sure I'm quite qualified for this. It might be too advanced for a beginner."

"It not," he assured, "but do you want to switch?"

_Yes_, but her pride refused. "No. It just feels strange."

He studied her face and she averted her gaze to the patchwork coverlet on the bed. "Does it _feel_ strange," he tried to parse, "or does it _seem_ strange?"

Her eyes flickered up. "Is there a difference?"

"Yes." He smiled generously. "Any writer will tell you there's an enormous difference."

"I'm not a writer, you are." _  
><em>

He ignored the petulant tone. "How something seems is a perception. So let me ask you: how does it _feel_?"

"I don't know," she mumbled, but he did not relent; she swept an irked hand over her hair. "Not bad. It feels like it always does, I suppose." That was unhelpful, but it was all she was prepared to say. "Let's just get on with it," she deflected. "You didn't finagle two rooms to _talk_, darling."

He chuckled and she felt satisfied with her saucy bedroom speak, her clever escape, until he came close to her ear and remarked, in that craggy accent, "So that's what posh people say when they want to avoid the question, huh?" He laid a kiss on her temple. "But that's alright, you don't have to talk, if you don't want to." He kissed again- lingering- in the same spot. "You just-" now behind her ear, then down at her throat- "you have to want it."

_God, how could_- She let her eyes fall closed as he continued his exploration. _You have to want it- _a direction, not an aspersion- and the key was in them. _You have to want it_. It echoed in her sigh and his, in the sounds of mutual veneration. _I want whatever you want and I will do it-_

Then, the bed creaked_. _

He made a crack about Liverpool, so the intrusion wouldn't be awkward (there was no chance it would go unnoticed), but it had the opposite effect. In Liverpool, she had been an accomplice, merely an accomplice. It was an ugly sound.

He carried on, not bothered or impeded at all. _You have to want it_. She did want it- and she desperately _wanted_ to want it- why couldn't she just _do_ it? Maybe she wasn't able, maybe it only worked that way for men. Their desire was readable, at any moment; hers was indistinct and mercurial, coming in and out of focus. But he did seem sure and he did have experience with women. _You have to want it_. She let it repeat once, thrice in her mind, and waited for comprehension to take hold, like when Isis had finally run and fetched the stick.

She sighed and opened her eyes.

"Sybil?" He stopped now. "Darling, it's fine. It's really fine." _Darling_ was her endearment, he only ever used it to placate her- she supposed now for her ineptitude, so luminously on display. "Are you pouting?"

Caught, she scoffed, "_No_. I don't pout."

"That's completely untrue," he chortled. Her jaw dropped and he mimicked her. "How can _you_ pout when you've got me at your mercy in the throes of love?"

"Well," she confirmed with a smug shift, a wee bit of pride restored, "that _is_ true."

"I meant my _heart, _woman. I don't know what you mean." They laughed. "In Irish, I'd tell you, _Tá mo chroí istigh ionat_."

"Is that Irish for 'You have the mind of a sailor'?" she smirked.

He feigned offense. "It's 'I love you' of course- it's all I ever want to say to you."

"What happened to _ta gra agam duit_?"

"That's good!" he praised. "That's also 'I love you,' but _tá mo chroí istigh ionat _would be translated as _'_my heart is in you.'" She cackled at his wicked reveal. "We're a poetic people, Sybil, with a phrase for every occasion."

She clasped her hands behind his neck, touched her forehead to his. "Tom, you're an ass."

"And _you_-" he returned, "sure are talking a lot for someone who says she doesn't want to." She- of course- started to reply, but she caught herself and bit her lip. "Well, then. If we're done with that..."

He brushed a deceptively chaste kiss on her lips, which spread underneath his into a seductive smile. This was the little erotic game they played sometimes, where one would try and try, while the other denied and denied and then- finally- broke. She couldn't explain why it had such effect, but it did and she both knew and understood all the nuances.

She loved kissing Tom- the last sight of him as he tilted his head and came toward her, how he cradled her face, let his hands roam and pulled her in at the shoulders; how he pushed his body down (or, as now, up) on hers. She liked to think she kisses like a lad from the slums of Dublin because that's who she learned it from. The thought delights her, _excites_ her, that a kiss can lift the curse of birth. She won't ever kiss like a lady because she doesn't know how.

As it happened, desire outpaced both her ability and his patience- "Can we switch?"- so much so that she did not even have time to suggest perhaps not on top of the coverlet. She had been grateful for the reprieve, but there was the niggling problem of pride.

"I suppose I wasn't wholly a failure," she remarked as he rolled over, though she didn't really believe it. "_Given_."

"I'd say not." He kissed her cheek. "Thanks for giving it a go."

She groaned. "Oh God, don't patronize me."

"I'm not," he replied. "Rome wasn't built in a day. You tried, that's what counts."

She pushed herself off the bed. He meant well, _but God._ Sybil Crawley was not a person who collected "tried-hard" points and participant's ribbons. The supervisors at York had predicted she wouldn't last a week, that she'd faint at the first sight of blood. They knew her kind, they said. No, they didn't. Sybil was not a person who tried; she was a person who succeeded. _Best in my class too_.

She wandered to the window, up on the stool and raised her elbows onto the sill. The jacket lifted- she was still wearing it- and he whistled from the bed. She looked over and found him grinning, one knee up and an arm behind his head. "Don't mind me," he drawled. "I'm just enjoying the view."

She turned back and peered into the darkness, listening to the symphonic night- noisy crickets, rustling trees, the grass moving afield, and, far off and intermittent, the sound of the ocean.

"Hey Tom," she proposed, "I have a wild idea..."

* * *

><p><em>"Let's run, down to the beach. We can watch the sun come up." <em>

_Clothes?_

_"Do we need them?" _

_He settled on an undershirt, while she swapped his jacket for her slip and her own long coat. "No knickers?" he noticed._

_"You either," she pointed out. He shrugged as he did the button on his pants_.

The clock showed an hour and half until dawn as they crept down the hall toward the entry door, half-dressed with no underclothes. But it was their bare feet on the frayed runner that felt the most subversive, for how would they explain _that_ if any guests dared show themselves from behind one of these ancient wooden doors?

Outside, the ground was dew-laden and pliant as they ran to the narrow pass that led down to the cove. It looked treacherous from fifteen meters up- so much so that they almost turned back- but the millennia had adhered the rocks in place. They jumped down to the beach, finding the sand moist but not wet.

It was cooler at the bottom, but the high cliff kept the wind at bay and only motion fluttered her open coat. The bright, white moon reflected off the beach and the top of the sea, an eerie pallor on the indigo world. It was very queer, the world at this hour- like a blue period Picasso accented by an imminent dawn, and the waves bounded toward them.

Tom put his hands on his hips and turned to Sybil. "Now what?"

"I don't know!" she laughed as they looked out to where the water crested and churned. "I told you, it was a mad idea."

"But a good one." He took a deep inhale of sea-air and pointed into the distance. "Tide's coming in." For awhile, side-by-side, they watched it until Tom resolved, "I'm going in."

"It's freezing!" she protested.

"I don't care, I haven't been in the ocean in, what, ten years?" His head shook in disbelief. "How am I old enough to say it's been ten years since I've done something?"

"Can you swim?"

"Sure. I used to swim all the time in the summer, before I left home," he told her. "Mickey Callaghan and I worked as delivery boys- the best job because it provided a bicycle- and when the shops closed for the day, we'd nick a couple of apples from a cart and ride up the coast and swim. Sometimes Mickey's sister joined us. She had the biggest tits I'd ever seen." He winced. "Ack, didn't mean to say that out loud."

He apologized, but Sybil found it funny. "How old were you?"

"Ten? Eleven?"

"I don't think I knew what a boy was at ten. I certainly wasn't thinking about their anatomy."

"Maybe I was older. I had that job for a few summers," he reconsidered. "But truly, Syb, they were like- "

He mimed the rest of the description and she laughed, glad that he wasn't afraid to joke with her like that, but also because it was the most fathomable part of his testament of youth, a natural and free youth, which was unfathomable to her. "Well," she said wistfully, "it sounds wonderful."

_Wonderful_ was not a word he would ever ascribe to it- she'd obviously missed the child labor part of the story and they didn't steal food to be cute- but he could understand the appeal of that very adulterated anecdote to her. "Yeah, it was alright." He reached and pulled his shirt over his head. "So, you coming in with me?"

"Not a chance." He clucked at her and she crossed her arms. "You'll catch your death."

"They _say_ that... You know how many people I've known it to happen to? None," he said, as he dropped his pants. "And if you know different, Nurse, I won't be around hear it." With that, he ran straight in, letting out a whoop when the icy water hit him. "_Feck_, it's cold!"

"Who would have guessed?" she bellowed back. "Oh right- me!"

She could see his grin through the dark and watched as he waded out, past his waist; she ventured into the spume- no farther, even that was cold- and knelt down. Sand had been a wondrous discovery in Sybil's childhood- something she could cover herself and her clothes and even her hair with and never get dirty, which she could just brush off without notice or punishment. It had been years since she'd touched it, reveled in its shape-shifting powers as she did now, making handprints that were quickly washed out, leaving a new blank canvas in their wake.

Shortly, Tom trotted back, full of excitement with one hand outstretched. "Come on. You have to come out, just for a minute."

"No. No, no, no."

"Climb on my back and I'll walk you out," he persisted. "Really. It's incredible."

It did not look incredible, it looked cold. And he looked cold- naked and terribly, terribly cold. "Are your teeth chattering?"

He shot her a bemused look. "It's_ really_ cold. We're not that far from the Arctic Circle."

"Yes, we are," she refuted. He didn't believe it. "Well, we're no closer than we were in Yorkshire." He didn't believe that either. "It _is_ so. There's a captain's map in entry room. They're practically on the same line."

"I saw the map- I was looking at the Golden Horn." He waved her onward. "C'mon, let's go. We can argue about latitudes later."

"Alright, fine, fine," she acquiesced, "but only for a moment. Don't let me get wet." She shrugged off her coat and tossed it back, away from the encroaching water, and stepped into the palm he offered as a launch.

"And we can talk about you," he huffed as he hoisted her up, "standing in front of a map of the world- the _whole wide world_- and looking for _Downton_."

"You must know where you start," she defended, as she hitched up her slip to keep it from dragging in the water. "Didn't you ever read Peter Parley as a child?"

"Who's Peter Parley?"

"Peter Parley was an explorer and adventurer who traveled the world and told fantastic- ah!" She yelped as her feet touched water. "Golly, that's sharp!"

He paused. "You'll acclimate in a minute or two. I barely feel it now."

"_That's_ hypothermia. But go on." She shivered as her ankles were submerged. "The quicker the better."

"The adventurer Parley'd be proud, Syb."

"Right he would! Anyway, he told fantastic stories but he always started off with a series of questions." She recited them now, in the sing-song cadence of a child, "_What place do you live? Is it a town or a city? What lies next- to the north, to the south, the east and the west? Have you ever seen a river or a mountain? How about the sea and the ocean and do you know which way they lie?_"

Tom smiled at the exuberance in her voice. "So the little Sybil Crawley was a searcher from the start, eh?"

"I wrote him a letter once, but he didn't write me back. Probably because he was already dead," she mused. "You laugh," she teased in his ear, "but I dare say, if you'd spent your time with Mr. Parley instead of large-breasted girls, you might know that Sligo is no farther north than Yorkshire."

He stopped and shot a nefarious look back. "That's a lot of cheek from someone who doesn't want to get wet."

"Tom, don't you dare!"

He didn't dare, but she didn't know that. He feinted playfully and she was instantly gripped by the (inexplicable, but universal) terror of being thrown in, of the shock of cold water. Her heart was pounding from the sudden surge of adrenaline and her senses must have been heightened too, because it was only now that she saw that Tom had slowly and steadily walked them into the infinite. They couldn't have been more than twenty yards out- the water was only up to Tom's waist- but all around them was nothing. In front of them, nothing. On either side, nothing. To the north and east and west, nothing. Just the moon and the stars and nothing, nothing but them.

Nothing but them.

Nothing- _but them_.

_But us_.

_Nothing_- _but us_.

_Oh_.

The universe was so vast and everything in it inconsequential. Its forces could- and would and did- create and destroy without care for morality or justice or love. These rocks had stood for eons- _how many generations had lived and died in their time_?- and they could be brought down tomorrow if Nature saw fit. A century of progress- industrialization, electricity, a plane that could fly over the Atlantic in a single day- that was not even heartbeat in the existence of the world. A Great War- with thirty _million_ casualties- not even a blink. _Not even a blink_. Thirty million lives taken or mangled; thirty million multiplied by mothers and fathers and siblings and sweethearts and wives, friends and colleagues and neighbors, teachers and doctors, milkmen and postmen and libertine photographers only just met, every one of them affected and still- _still_- not even a blink.

Thirty million who might never again walk, countless more who would never be carried on their shoulders, and she was hung up on the temperature of the water.

Her arms were wrapped tight around Tom and the wind- it was windier out here- ruffled his hair against her cheek. He rubbed her legs, an unconscious exhibit of what he said- that he would never do that, he could never be cruel to her. _How did we come to be_? Not in Sligo or even Ireland. To exist, here and now. _Together_. Amidst famine and flood, sickness and disaster- _us_. War. _But us_. To be alive and healthy and strong- and together, in this place and time- they had defied odds far greater than disapproval.

They were transfigured; and no thing could be so poignant or beautiful as two people clinging- mooring- to each other in an indifferent world.

Nature could end them in another minute, if she saw fit- hadn't Patrick and all those doomed souls drowned in these same icy waters?- but for now, they were alive. And unlike the aged rocks, they could celebrate their existence. _Do not pity us for our mortality, for we alone possess the power to live_.

Sybil stared down the deep blue horizon, just starting to blanch with the waking sun. For an instant, she wanted to swim out and touch it. She was not sure if that was inspired or insane or both. But in her bones she wanted to and, in that instant, she was certain she could have reached it.

It _was_ incredible.

And also, Nature was a _she_.

Tom, lost in his own ruminations, pointed up- to the North Star, the summer constellations- and offered a casual reply to a question that had crossed her mind. "Who needs a boat ride down the Bosphorus when we have this?" And he kissed the back of her hand that was wound close to his face- a gesture so gentle and freely given that she was reminded of what she had told- or, perhaps, prophesied- to her mother the day they had left for good: "_It's impossible really_."

The rising tide was coming in faster now and they returned to shore. He let her down with care and when he stood back up, she was staring at him- curiously, wildly even- not quite like herself, although he couldn't quite say why. He started to remark on it, but she didn't give him the chance.

He will ask her about it later, the transformation that brought her to her knees, over him, right there in the sand. Was it easier in the dark? Because they couldn't be heard over the roar of the ocean? Had the spirits taken possession for one last day of sweet life?

And she will answer: _yes_ to all of it.

But for now, they just held each other until the tide moved them again.


	61. Chapter 61: Sligo Part V

_ Thank you as always for the reviews! PS, I left a note re: this chpt in comments._

_This is the end of the Sligo trip. Let's go get married!_

* * *

><p>"My girl, my girl," Tom repeated softly, the words lost in her hair, on the wind, drowned out by the rush of water reverberating off the high cliff that surrounded them. Sybil was breathing hard in his arms, her hand open over his heart that beat furiously underneath. She concentrated and recorded its rhythm under her palm. <em>So much more than disapproval<em>. A chant, steady and even_, not a murmur_. She pressed harder. She was quite sure that after all her anxious self-study on the night shifts with Dr. Clarkson's textbooks, she knew more about heart murmurs than half the doctors in England. _Steady and even_. She always took her counts twice to be sure. _A_ _shout, not a murmur_. She smiled. _Like him_. _Like us_.

She relaxed her hand and laid her head down on his shoulder, cold against her cheek, as Tom softly assured her that he never ever noticed it. "Never?"

"Never. No shortness of breath, no sudden lightheadedness. Well," he amended with a grin, "never _unintentionally_." She smiled for him, but it was belied by the concern etched in her face and he knew she was experiencing love's paradoxical power, how it made one at once invincible and terribly vulnerable, something to be both revered but feared like the Old Testament God. He'd learned that lesson repeatedly for years, every day she had passed by him- chin up, hair up- so far above him that it could never happen. But then, alone at night, the same whispered vision would visit: _but things __are changing_.

He traced the salt-coarsened hair that framed her face, the face of the future. "I don't hate it," he said and kissed her softly and romantically. "How could I?" They were perfect like this.

They kissed and let the breeze strum them until the tide surged up, dousing their gathered laps and leaving a little pool of seawater in Sybil's slip. She let out a little shriek into his mouth. Tom, who had his more sensitive parts shielded by her body, hastened them up. "It's probably time to head back."

"I am ready for a warm bed," she agreed shaking off and and went to retrieve her coat.

"Do you want to wash?" he asked her as he collected his clothes. The girls he had known swore by the preventative powers of a post-coital bath. "They say that-"

"I know what they say," Sybil interrupted, coming back. "But I'm not sure I believe it."

"Why not?"

She looked askance at him. "Because when a pregnant woman has a bath, the baby doesn't fall out."

That was- _logical_, though he wondered how a Dublin woman would respond as it was prudent practice here. "I confess I don't know much about it." That was considered _women's business_ and like most men, he hadn't ever pursued it. But he did wonder if Sybil took any measures. All she had ever said to him on the subject was that she was "_absolutely certain_" she had not become pregnant in Liverpool. Of course, that was before the last time and tonight obviously...

"Me either," she admitted as they headed back to the pass. "How it _actually_ happens. Medically-speaking, I mean." The conversation paused as Tom scaled the base rock. He extended a hand to help her. "I do so hate imprecision," she huffed as she rappelled herself up.

They took a moment to take in the panorama once more and Tom slid an arm around her. "Last chance. We could sit here and wait for the sun to come up."

"No, it's cold." She bloused the saturated slip away from her skin. "And _wet_."

He nodded and dropped a kiss on her head. "Well, it was a worthy venture nonetheless." He started to turn, taking her with him, and Sybil was jolted with a completely new sensation. It hit her out of nowhere and flooded over her- she felt it under his hand where he had touched her that day by the car, in her lap and her arms and under her chin, where a baby's head might settle. It was so potent and real- _physical_- it was not her imagination, it was _happening. _Something was happening to her- right here, right now- on this rock, looking out at the horizon.

_A baby_.

She didn't want a baby, but she did- not yet, but _now- _wanted them to make a baby- right here, right now- with the water rising up around their knees if that's what he wanted too. And she would bring it to life in the sand and the stillness with no one else around, watch his face as she handed it to him and made him a father, as only she could do. And they would sit, just them three, their tiny love sheltered between them.

_Give birth on a cold beach, in the dark, with no doctor_? It was mad, but it had a strange appeal. And how would she ever become a doctor if she were forever on holiday with bunches of babies? She couldn't say, but _I want us to have them, _she thought, the answer a surprise_, and we'll bring them here, to the end of the earth, and let them run wild_.

"Sybil?" She startled back to the present when a hand waved in front of her face. "I must have called you three times," Tom laughed. "What's on your mind?"

"Oh- nothing." She shook her head to clear it. "Just- the world is queer at this hour, isn't it?"

* * *

><p>They were quiet for most of the brisk walk back to the inn. But as they came up on the flagstones that led to the front door, Sybil's thoughts about <em>a baby, our baby <em>collided with the remembrance of an earlier comment. "What Erich said, when he found out about us- I don't have '_noble blood._'"

"Oh." Tom heard offense in her voice, but it had seemed offhand to him. "I don't think he meant it to slight me. It's just a thing people say."

The explanation upset her. "I _know_ it is."

"I didn't even notice, to be honest."

"Tom." She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Blood is A, B, O. That's all. That's it." He nodded at her, but she persisted. "There's no _character _in blood," she nearly spat, "and if you put it under a microscope, you certainly could not tell its class."

"Alright."

"We had to test our own in training. I'm type O." He could see a small smile, despite the dark. "Who knows? We might even be the same."

"Maybe..." He knew her expression was earnest and sincere, but the last line was just a bit too quixotic, a bit too reminiscent of _only rich people can say they don't care about money_. "But the world thinks different. That's why your father is an Earl and Mr. Carson clears his plates."

"Well, the world is wrong," Sybil retorted defiantly, as she moved to open the door. "And the world will have a devil of a time sorting our children, won't it?"

* * *

><p>The topic was forgotten as they re-entered their room and realized just how exhausted they were. It took all their reserves to clean their teeth and their feet, pile their wet clothes in the corner and crawl into bed. They didn't dress for bed, as they were too tired to bother and besides, Sybil said she wanted it to be like Liverpool, "<em>the only night we've ever spent together<em>" (well, except for the time she passed out drunk at the flat, but Tom didn't quibble).

She didn't want it to be exactly like Liverpool though, and pushed him out of the warm bed to close the shutter so they could avoid an unpleasant wake-up. "You'll thank me when you wake up at nine," she chirped as he hauled himself to the window. "Tom, look, " Sybil pointed from the pillow to the pinkish halo that was rising afield. "The sun's coming up."

He looked back at the bed, where she was waiting with a sleepy smile for him- "I see it, love"- drew in the shutter and joined her.

* * *

><p>The unpleasant wake up call came anyway- not from blinding light but from a libertine pounding on their door. "Good morning, lovebirds!" Erich boomed. "Rise and shine!"<p>

Tom rubbed his face and looked down at Sybil, asleep on his chest. "What's he want?"

"Probably to wake us for breakfast, like we asked," she mumbled.

"Do you want to?" Her answer to that was to roll over in the opposite direction, which made him laugh. "Go on without us," he called to Erich. "We'll catch up later."

"That sounds about right!" Erich hooted. "See you later, lovebirds."

Tom was up and awake now and in need of some coffee and sustenance, as it had been twelve hours since dinner, but it was quite obvious Sybil was ready to be roused yet. Ah, well- they'd only gone to bed three hours ago. He realized that while she had worked very early and very late shifts at the hospital, she had probably never slept less than eight hours in her entire life. He would let her have four or five today, if his stomach could hold out.

He sunk back into the pillow and allowed himself to relish being in a bed; it wasn't luxurious by any stretch, but it was more comfortable than his mother's sofa. The air of the new day still came through the slats in the closed shutter, filling the room with a pleasant, peaty scent- not old and musty, but new and fresh- and some sand in the bed scratched at his back. It felt like summer- summer as he remembered it- and he tried to imagine how Sybil had started her summer days as a child. _In an enormous feathered bed with four wooden posts and a canopy, _he thought,_ and a pretty handmaiden_, not so much older, to kindly wake the little mistress. _The little mistress, _he laughed to himself_. _Could their lives be more ridiculously different? If he had told Mickey Callaghan that one day, when they were grown, he would meet that little mistress of the castle and bring her here to Dublin and marry her in St. Michael's church...

What in the world was he to do with the Crawleys in Dublin?

He and Sybil had not really discussed it; as was her nature, she assumed it would all be fine. He, however, was not so sure. The Dowager had declined, but Sybil had not expected her to come- "_She won't die anywhere but in Britain_," Sybil explained, "_and as such, she says she is far too old to risk travelling to foreign land_." Tom had thought that a positive, except Sybil then told him how her grandmother had defended him to her father. "_My virtues_?" he had repeated. "_Exactly what virtues does _she_ think I have_?" To which Sybil had to admit, "_Well, she wasn't terribly specific, but still._" And she had purchased them a beech wood bedroom set as a wedding present- and he had to admit, he was somewhat unnerved at the idea that the Dowager Countess of Grantham had picked out their first marital bed.

The Manchester Crawleys, for the understandable reason of Lavinia's recent death, had also declined. That was a blow- Mrs. Crawley and Mr. Matthew had always been kind to him and he knew Mrs. Crawley had supported their union to Sybil. Mr. Matthew was a superior, but he seemed to Tom almost embarrassed by it and made it a point to solicit Tom's opinion about news stories when they were alone in the car; Matthew Crawley treated him like a fellow, an educated man, which Tom appreciated very much. The Manchester Crawleys could have provided a conduit to the rest of the family, but alas.

_Her sisters will be fine_, he reasoned. _They'll be nice for her. _They'll come to see the new flat and help Sybil with her dress and her preparations. _Lady Edith might even be convinced to come for a drink_. He doubted Lady Mary would enter a pub, but Sybil said she would come to the Abbey, if he could manage tickets- proof it had reached renown, despite its politically and morally revolutionary bent. He and Sybil loved that artists were unafraid depict the world as it actually was, even if some old fusty patrons booed and boycotted. And if he couldn't procure seats in the Dress Circle, there was always the cinema. "_They live with my parents in Yorkshire_," Sybil kept reminding him, "_they'll be glad for _any_ excitement_."

Sybil had not heard whether Sir Richard planned to accompany the family- "_I don't think he cares for us very much, which is fine because we don't much care for him"- _which selfishly made Tom wished he would, so he wouldn't be the only undesirable future husband at the table. Sir Richard had more money than Tom, but also more arrogance; and from what he'd heard, little tolerance for Crawley snobbery. A self-made magnate like Sir Richard, who fought and clawed to build his fortune, must look upon Robert Crawley and see a man whose sole achievement in life was his own birth. Tom could respect that view; and he could ask him about the newspaper business and what he thought was the proper relationship between a country's government and its press.

He had no idea what he could talk to Sybil's parents about- he envisioned that even a polite inquiry on some innocuous subject- say, the journey over- would be met with outrage that he had addressed them without asking permission to speak. Sybil made too much of that handshake outside the church. Firstly, she hadn't felt the limp contempt in His Lordship's hand; it was an acknowledgement of a verdict, not an offer of respect. Secondly, she did not know about her father's failed bribe, a secret Lord Grantham definitely wanted Tom to keep.

Tom still hated Robert Crawley for that- _but_. He looked over at Sybil and ran an affectionate hand over her hair. But now he almost felt sorry for him. It was apparent Robert Crawley hadn't a clue who his daughter was or what would make her happy. He was schooled on that by his driver, whom he had probably never given more than a moment's thought. He doubted His Lordship even remembered his first name. Lady Mary was as much of a stickler as her father, but she knew more- "_I would never have taken her there_"- she _understood _more, even if just a little bit.

"Sybil," he spoke suddenly. "Sybil?"

"Hmm?"

He came to lean over her shoulder. "I'm sorry for what I said about your father earlier. It was disrespectful."

She nodded, still in sleep. "Alright."

"I'll be very respectful to him when he's here. I'll talk to him," he determined, as a plan hatched in his head. "Did you hear me, love?" He doubted she had. "I'll talk to him and state my intentions." That's what a worthy man would do, that's what Mr. Matthew would do- he would not carry a chip, he would do what he could to ease his father-in-law's mind. "I'll be a man you can be proud of."

He would talk to Lord Grantham- _at the church, yes_. He will seek out Sybil's father at the church before the ceremony: "_I wonder if I might-" _no, no_- "I wonder if you might grant me a word, my Lord." _He will tell him what he promised Sybil when he proposed, that he will devote every minute to her happiness. And he will tell him, not for pity, but merely as a point-of-fact, about his own father and how he had never brought his mother a minute's happiness in all the miserable years he had known him. _What I mean to say, My Lord, is that I am who I am and I know I'm not who you wanted for her, but what I said- what I promised her- I meant it most sincerely... _It has deep roots for him, deeper than anyone knows, even Sybil; it springs from his first childish conception of what it means to be man, to love and care for a woman, to father children, to head a family- or in the case of his own father, to fall down on all of it... _and my Lord, I only want to say that I mean to keep that promise I made to your daughter. I think- _no_- It is my life's purpose to keep it_.

* * *

><p>They returned to Dublin as in love as any couple could hope to be before their wedding, albeit very tired from the minimal sleep and the hotly competitive World Series of Word Games with Erich who had declared, "If the Americans can claim a World Series with only country, we can claim one on this bally train!" a logic with which they all agreed, and they played boisterously as the local train chugged back to Dublin. Third-class was far more talkative and tolerant than first, Sybil noted, and no one stared at her when, at the mid-way rest stop, she sat on a bar stool and smoked as Tom and Erich each drank a pint "<em>down in two<em>" as they put it. As they re-boarded, they invited Erich to come to their wedding and Sybil reached across the compartment and hugged him when he replied that he would be honored.

They arrived back at the Branson house just after seven, drooped through dinner with Tom's mother and retired to the sofa, where Tom read the paper and Sybil soon nodded off on his shoulder after rebuffing his repeated suggestion to "_Go on to bed, love."_

"An _awful_ lot of excitement for a news story that had never happened," Mrs. Branson remarked as she worked on a hem from the chair opposite in the summer evening light. Tom reproached his mother's insinuation with silence, but she could not help but smile at the shine in his eye.

"That's a pretty fancy dress you got there, Mam," he commented, as he turned the page. "Wonder what it's for." Now it was her turn to respond in kind, with silence, when he looked up in amusement at her. He returned to his activity, but she did not and regarded, with some incredulity, her son and his sweetheart. His soon-to-be wife with her grating accent and fairy-tale genesis- _she'd be more believable if she'd sprouted from a patch_- and _Good Lord_, she probably didn't know how to take up or take down a hem, but there she sat, on the old sofa, her two arms twined around Tom's one, with her short hair and face slightly browned from the sun. Mrs. Branson had to admit, she bore little resemblance to the untarnished doll-creature who had arrived on her doorstep six weeks ago.

She couldn't say she agreed with it- she would probably never _agree_ with it- but she could see it.

* * *

><p>If they had never taken the trip north, her parents might have attended the wedding. If they had never taken the trip north, Erich wouldn't have taken the photo that Sybil sent to her sisters which Edith showed to their mother who left it on the dressing table, where their father found it.<p>

Cora hadn't expected her husband to come up before she got out of the bath, so she had not yet returned the photo and the day-old _Manchester Guardian _to her drawer_. _O'Brien had found out for her, via reluctant inquiries to her native people, that the _Guardian_ was sympathetic to the Irish cause and hence provided coverage of the new Irish Parliament, which Britain did not recognize and Cora had become an assiduous, if covert, student of the situation in Ireland. And so, unlike Robert, she did not believe the propagandized articles in the London papers about the admirable restraint and patience of the Empire towards the "traitorous rebel minority." To hear the British press tell it, Free Ireland was no more than a fever about to break or _be broken_.

That is what Robert expected to see in the photograph, but that was not what he saw.

The chauffeur was sitting in a field of some sort with the broad smile he always wore- _an insolent smile, _which Robert realized now should have tipped him off; no man should look so pleased to drive his superiors around- with an arm around a sweetheart, his hand indecently settled on her hip. The chauffeur's girl had her hair butchered like the rebel women in the _Times_ illustration- "The Great Provocation" it was called- taunting British officers to frisk them for revolvers. The chauffeur's girl sat on the grass,_ in the dirt __he did not even lay down his jacket for her,_ arms clasped around her knees, clad in a cheap printed dress with her ankles exposed at the bottom. She had her head tipped downward, and was squinting a bit in the sunlight. Her smile was broad too- not insolent though, just impossibly dear.

Robert could recount, as if it had happened last hour, the first one she had ever showed to the world, toothless and unafraid- yet he had known the chauffeur before her. His own child, his own blood, was barely recognizable to him. He had been full of pity for poor Lavinia's poor father the day she had asked, but perhaps it was old Swire would should pity him. At least his grief was known.

_So that's it then_.

He did not attend the weddings of strangers.


	62. Chapter 62: The Royal Hibernian Part I

_Thank you so much for the reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, March 1920<strong>

The gunfire was different.

In the fields of a hunt, it was orderly: a discrete, restrained gambit punctuated with a discreet, restrained _well done old chap, I think that one's a kill _and a comment on the weather_. _It was a predictable sound, a permissible intrusion into a staid English tableau, like the clink of cup to saucer or the turning of a page when her father demanded silence in the library.

In the streets of the city, it was frantic and scuttled- a show of strength or misdirection for a bomb, the answer to a question from a Tan. She had never been_ in it_ as they said, thank God, so she'd only ever heard it around the corner or through the window. It had none of the banal experience of shots fired by police or military men, or even men at all; it sounded to her an almost youthful expression- impulsive, emotional- that, absurdly, made her think of a pub breaking into song.

Tonight, in front of her, it had been cold and certain- a lethal metronome of rapid-fire bullets of equal velocity but each one progressively closer to its aim, to death. _The aim of a hospital is life, _which she had never considered before_._ Modern weapons kept the victim at a distance, but she had no doubt as their guns drove death into life that they would have done with their hands. It was the sound of hate.

That is what an assassination sounded like and now, when she read about them in the newspapers, that sound would ring in her ears.

The visual hadn't bothered her, she had seen corpses in far worse shape. The scene was almost theatrical, pulled from a play about the ancient world: the body of a military officer, flanked by torches, bent and splayed on the white stairs of the Royal Hibernian Hotel as the rain came down.

Sybil closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the sofa and prayed for Tom to come home.

* * *

><p><strong>June 1919<strong>

Once again, Sybil lay awake in the little uncomfortable bed. _Just a week more _at Mrs Branson's, then she would be on her fine, new mattress at the flat. It was too hot to sleep or even breathe. The summer heat seemed to have settled permanently over the city, worse after the experience of a cool northern night. She longed for it and that did not just mean the water.

She got out of bed and opened the window, but the thick air didn't stir. She leaned out. The city was never quite dark or quiet. A streetlight she couldn't see flickered in an alley. She observed the crowded houses, the crisscrossed clotheslines, the outhouse that ran low and adjacent to the Branson home. Tom and Liam used to use the roof as a landing when they sneaked out. _To meet girls of course_. She briefly wondered why, given her rebel tendencies, she had never gone adventuring with boys. She smiled to herself. _I suppose that's not strictly true._

She returned to her bed. It was Monday, probably early Tuesday now, and her family was due to arrive Thursday. Tom was anxious about it, _but he needn't be_. True, the dinner conversations would be difficult and Papa will have a fit when he finds out the church is Catholic. But none of it will matter because at the altar, he will see that _we really are in love_ and _this is what I want_. And Tom will know that he and Papa had never been at cross-purposes. Her father loved his daughters, even if they maddened and befuddled him. Tom didn't know how he used to call her _my great girl, _would come up the stairs calling _where is my great girl_? Or how he would tease her, after Mama had punished her for some antic or another, _You are too much for your mother sometimes _to which she would ask, _But not for my dearest Papa? _and he would answer with amusement, _Not yet, not yet._

Her father used to let her spin the globe in his library, showed her where he had bravely fought the Boers and where Mama was born. The year she turned thirteen, they followed all the news of the South Pole expedition together. He had been touched that she still wanted to do that _Mary and Edith would never, _although he was wrong about that, Edith was never asked. In the years after, it used to make Sybil so mad that he championed exploration, just not for her. Then one day, amid all her fury- _You're a free spirit,__ free spirits must be free- _and she no longer needed her father to understand her_._

On Saturday, she would shed his name and become someone new- _Sybil Branson_- and that person was content, at peace with the world. She would be a better daughter- no more moodiness, no more fights- _I will be his great girl again_.

The war at home- the weary, unwinnable war with her father, with his world- was over. It would happen as suddenly as it had in November, when she and Tom had stared unbelievably at the victory headlines. With his collar loose and his jacket off. He would have been fired, had Carson found him like that, with her, alone. _I wonder what he would have done if he found me in it?_ She had to laugh. _Poor Carson_. The world was mad and a mad world was not the world for him. For her, for Tom? _This_ world was made for them._  
><em>

* * *

><p>"Tom, Tom..." she hummed his name in his ear. "Tom, are you asleep?"<p>

"Not anymore." He blinked awake. Sybil was knelt down beside him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just wonder if you would want to come up?"

He turned on an elbow. _ _This could be fun_. _"Come up for what?"

"To play."

He toyed with the string bow at her neckline. "Play what?"

"Whatever you like." She smiled seductively. "A honeymoon variant."

"You know," he chuckled, "I remember when you didn't know how to flirt."

* * *

><p>Behind the locked door, they whispered to each other in the dark:<p>

"I know we shouldn't, but I couldn't help it."

"I wouldn't want you to." He pushed up her nightdress. "Can I?"

She nodded. "Take it off. Let's not have anything between us."

They had already pulled back the covers because of the heat, so it was just them now; even on the beach she'd had on her slip. "You've changed," he noted.

"Yes." She watched him as he looked. "I hope you don't think too much."

"No." He wanted to take hold of all of her at once. She saw it and moved his hand. "Ah. Be easy, love."

"I'm not from Dublin."

"Play nice," he translated. "I'm a man, not a monk."

"What would you do with me if I were?"

"A monk?"

"A Dublin girl." He shook his head. "Why not? You don't want to be with me that way?"

"I want to be with you every way, but- no. It's too soon."

"Shouldn't I decide that?"

"I don't want to put you off."

"You won't."

"I don't want you to misunderstand."

"I won't. I know now that it's alright to- to _want," _she said, "as you did, that last time here."

He had been unconvinced until that. "Do you mean it? Because I want all of you, I want to be lost in you- darling, you can't know how much."

"Yes, I do, I want that too."

"I want us to be _together,_" he said, "and to finish what we started in Howth."

* * *

><p><em>Together<em>. That's what was on Sybil's mind as she chopped the onions for dinner. _To finish what we started in Howth_. She couldn't be more in love, it wasn't possible. She answered the door with a dreamy smile. And then she opened the telegram.

Mrs. Branson paid no attention as she stood in the kitchen and read it. There had been a flurry of correspondence between Sybil and her mother and sisters as the date drew near and Mrs. Branson assumed it was more of the same, until Sybil abruptly announced she had a headache and needed to lie down. She left the telegram on the table. Mrs. Branson didn't say a word when she handed it to Tom:

**Your sisters will arrive Thursday as planned. They will represent the family.**

That was it- no sign-off, no endearment. The sender in the upper corner wasn't even the Earl, it was some Murray in London; his _lawyer_ had sent it. Tom's fist clenched around the paper. "That fecking coward."

"_Tom-_"

"She asked him _outright,_" he raged, "and this is how he answers her?" She had beamed at him in the churchyard that day. "Where is she?"

"Upstairs, in her room." He turned to leave, but his mother stopped him. "No, Tom. Get your emotions in check first."

"_My _emotions?"

"It's not for you to be upset. Your job is to take care of her."

He let her take the telegram from him and sank into a chair as the news sunk in. There had been no real consequences until now. "It's her wedding day, and he means to ruin it for her."

"I know, son. I know." His mother seemed sad. "But you won't let him, will you?"

"No, I won't." Of that, he was sure.

"Good boy." Then his mother did the strangest thing- she leaned over and pressed her lips to his temple. She had not done that since he was a child and it was odd to be kissed by someone other than Sybil. "Remember, the man at the start of the aisle isn't near as important as the man at the end." His mother had also been a bride once; she had tears in her eyes now. "You remember that."

* * *

><p>Sybil was on her side with a book when he came in. She told him she did not want to talk. "I have a headache."<p>

He sat down on the end of the bed and waited. They had had such fun here last night; now, she was completely closed off. After a few minutes of miserable silence he said, "I saw the telegram."

"I assumed so. It's not such a surprise."

"I'm so sorry, love."

"I'm fine," she said shortly.

_Don't make the mistake of thinking we don't_. "I don't believe you." His heart broke for her.

"We have too much cake. I'll change to order tomorrow, if I can. Save a bit of money."

"Please don't worry about it."

"We can't have a huge cake with no guests, Tom. That's stupid."

"Sybil, please-" _please let's not ruin it, it's our day, our wonderful day, that we've waited so long for_. He reached for her hand.

She pulled away. "I'd like to be alone, I think."

* * *

><p>He was awake to hear the creak of the stairs and then, she was in front of him. "Don't say a word about it. Not one word."<p>

"I won't, I promise." He opened his arms. "Come here."

He tucked the blanket around them. Her cheek felt clammy underneath his. He kissed it over and over and held her tight. "It would have been easier if he had just said no," she said softly, "but I suppose he doesn't want it to be easy for us."

"Can I say one thing?"

"Not about my father."

"No, not about him," he sighed. "I only want to say that no bride will ever be more loved than you. Not one, in all the world. So whether there's two or ten or a thousand people in that church Saturday, you hold your head up and walk proud because you know that's true."

* * *

><p>On the eve of her sisters' arrival, Liam and Aileen came for dinner. They were playing cards in the parlor when Tom came home. Mrs. Branson could only hint to Liam about the turn of events in front of Aileen. "Another win for you, <em>a stor.<em>" Liam handed over his cards as Tom settled in.

"What about my winnings?"

Liam fished out a coin. "You're a shark." Tom laughed. Aileen pocketed the cash with a grin. "Go help Ma in the kitchen and let Tom and me talk a bit, hmm?"

"Talk about what?"

"Politics." He offered a flask to his brother. "You could probably use this."

"I like politics," Aileen replied. "I don't want to help in the kitchen." Tom pulled a magazine out of his bag. "What's that?"

"It's a bridal magazine for Sybil." Aileen took it from him with enthusiasm. "Could you run it upstairs to her?"

She nodded. "Are your hands clean?" Liam asked. "I know you wouldn't put your sticky hands on that."

"I wouldn't!" She held them out for inspection.

"Good." He fixed her collar. "Off with you then and mind your manners. You call her _Miss_ Sybil."

"She said I could call her Sybil," Aileen sniffed. "We are friendly like that."

"Since you're friends- she's a bit down today," Tom told her. He demurred when Aileen wanted to know why. "But perhaps you could try and cheer her up?"

* * *

><p>Sybil was seated at the makeshift vanity she'd made in Tom's room in one of her dresses from the old days. It was for the first-night dinner at the hotel with her family, which would now just be Mary and Edith. Tom had thrown a small fit when she had informed him of her mother's plan last week:<p>

"_The Royal Hibernian?"_

_"Mama says it has the best French food outside of France and the orchestra plays every night."_

_"They won't even let me in the door there!" _

_"They're not going to turn away Lord Grantham's son-in-law." He scoffed. "What would you like me to do then? Send your regrets?"_

_He sighed noisily. And then he smiled. "And miss you telling them you're marrying Catholic? Not a chance."_

She had told him today he didn't have to go; it would be a chance for the sisters to catch up. But as she tried to fix her short hair to match the lavish dress, she wanted to chuck the whole plan and eat at a pub. She was in that kind of mood.

There was a knock at the door and Aileen poked her head in. "You can come all the way in," Sybil laughed. "What have you got there?"

"A bride magazine."

"I didn't know you were getting married," Sybil teased. "Who's the lucky chap?"

"Not for me," Aileen giggled. "For you!" She came over to Sybil and touched the organza sleeve with care. " Is this your wedding dress? It's very fine!"

"No, silly. My wedding dress is white. This is for dinner with my sisters."

"In a castle?"

Sybil laughed. "No. At a fancy hotel in the city."

"Liam says you used to live in a castle."

"We didn't call it that, but yes, I suppose it was."

Aileen attention had moved to the open jewelry box. "What did you call it?"

"Home," Sybil answered, feeling her stomach twisted as she did so. She lifted the sapphire necklace the girl was ogling. "Shall I put it on you?"

"On _me_?"

"Who else?" Aileen stiffened as Sybil clasped it around her neck; it obviously made her nervous to wear it. "Blue is a good color for you," Sybil told her. "It brings out the red in your hair."

"You can take it off now." Aileen exhaled when she did. "Did you buy that?"

"It was a birthday present from my parents, many years ago."

"Are you disowned?" Aileen blurted out.

Sybil was taken aback. "Where did you hear that?" Aileen said nothing, just stared at Sybil and waited. Sybil had no idea how to answer- in part, because she didn't know the answer. "Do you even know what that is?"

"It's when a girl's father turns her out because she's made a baby with no husband."

"Stop, _stop_-" Sybil held up her hand. "Goodness, you're precocious!"

"What's that?"

"Nevermind," Sybil sighed. "First of all, I have _not_ made a baby. I want you to be quite clear about that."

"Is that why you came to Ireland?" Aileen persisted gently. "Because your father won't let you come home?"

"We talked about this," Sybil reminded her. "I came to marry Tom, remember?"

Aileen frowned. "I know. No baby and a husband with a job. Why should your father be angry about that?"

"Do you know-" Sybil's voice caught- "I don't know."

Aileen took her hand. "Will you never see him again?"

"I hope that I will." She smiled sadly. "But I can't say."

"Don't cry." Aileen brushed her cheek. "At least you don't have a baby!" she said to cheer her. "Then no one would want to marry you!"

Sybil knew that was the culture speaking, although there was no substantive difference between that attitude and the unsympathetic one her family had about Ethel. Still, she couldn't let the comment pass. "That's not true."

"Maybe they'd marry_ you_ because you're rich," she reconsidered. "But no one wants to marry my mam because of me."

Sybil had not met Aileen's mother. All she knew was that she was 23, just a year older than her, worked in a cannery, and lived in a room in the tenement where Tom had been born. "I'm sure she just hasn't met the right man yet."

"No, it's because my dad didn't have any money to leave for me. No one wants to raise a child that's not theirs," Aileen said wisely. "You wouldn't pay to keep the neighbor's dog, would you?"

"Aileen! It's not the same at all."

Aileen shrugged, unaffected. "That's what my mam says."

Sybil wanted to be outraged, but Aileen's mother had been married and with child when Sybil was blowing out birthday candles and adding to her jewel collection; she had buried her husband before Sybil had left home. What could she say, really?

"Aileen, I'm glad you came up," Sybil started, "because I have a favor to ask you."

* * *

><p>"Guess what? Guess what?" Aileen shouted as she bounded down the stairs. "I'm going to be in the wedding!"<p>

Sybil followed and explained, "It's true. I asked Aileen to be my deputy and she was good enough to say yes."

She put a hand on Aileen's head; the child's face fell. "Although, I don't know if I can."

"Your mam will let you," Liam told her. Sybil heard it as he would not let her mother say no.

"Not that." Aileen lifted her eyes to Sybil. "I don't have any dress to wear."

"We'll buy you one," Tom jumped in. He understood Aileen's worry, as did everyone in the room other than Sybil. "We can afford it."

"But won't it be expensive, for just one wear?" Sybil realized Aileen hadn't spoken out of shame; she concerned about _them._

"We put some money in a box for the wedding," Tom assured her. There was no box, but that must be what people Aileen knew did. "This is what it's for."

"Aye, it is," Liam chimed in.

Aileen looked to Mrs. Branson. "What about my Communion dress? It's nice and white. I could wear that, if you haven't fixed it for Nan yet."

"I've not altered it yet. You can wear it, if Sybil approves."

"I think it's an excellent idea," Sybil affirmed.

"Oh good!" Aileen clapped. "Should I wear the veil too?"

"I'm not sure about the veil," Sybil replied, trading an amused look with Tom. "Two might be too many."

"And how shall I wear my hair? And what for shoes?"

"_Aileen_," Mrs. Branson interrupted her sharply. "You are not the bride."

"You've ruined her," Liam groaned. "Do you know that on the way over we were talking about the lock-out?"

"Oh hush." Sybil sat down and took Aileen on her lap. "She can be a socialist and a bridesmaid, can't you?"

"Wait till I tell the girls at school," Aileen said gleefully. "They'll be green over it!"

"Aileen, that's not nice," Mrs. Branson chided.

"Oh, they're all a bunch of braggarts. When Ellen Riley went to her brother's wedding, she yapped about it for a week and all she did was sit in the pew!"

* * *

><p>With Sybil considerably cheered, the trio decided to leave Aileen with Mrs. Branson and go for a drink at the pub. They were stopped in front of the house by a delivery boy on a bicycle. "Is one of ya S. Crawley?"<p>

Tom felt the blood drain out of her. "I am," she said. She accepted the telegram and Tom sent the kid off with a coin. _Please not another blow from home_. "It's from Mary." _Not her sisters too_. Her expression was unreadable. Liam looked curiously between them.

"What's it say?" Tom dreaded to ask.

"She says to cancel all our plans. Papa told them they're not allowed to leave the hotel except for the wedding. He doesn't think it's safe here," she finished with disdain. Tom couldn't remember ever hearing her speak so sharply. She crumpled it up. "Travel all this way to sit in a hotel? How _boring_."

Liam lit a cigarette and they resumed walking. "What hotel are they staying at?"

"The Royal Hibernian."

"The Hibernian?" he exclaimed. "Ugh, that place is _crawling_ with English-"

"They _are_ English," she snapped. _She's in a mood now_. Tom hoped his brother wouldn't push.

"English _officers__. _Half of Dublin Castle's installed up there," Liam informed them. "It's where Westminster puts up all its important visitors."

"I'm sure that's why my father chose it."

"It does make me wonder..." Liam's gaze moved to his brother. He cocked an eyebrow. "Does he know something we don't?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sybil demanded.

"Ireland declared its independence in _January_. But here we are, five months later, Britain hasn't retaliated at all and no one knows why."

"That's easy- Versailles," Tom replied. "The British don't want to jeopardize the peace treaty. Or help for their war debt."

"Fine, but Versailles is next week. And you know what else?" Tom and Sybil looked at him. "De Valera is about to leave the country. It'd be an opportune time, wouldn't it?"

"I wouldn't read too much into my father's orders," Sybil dismissed, running an irked hand through her hair. "I'm sure he only invoked safety to make my sister do what he wants." She turned to Tom. "Mary doesn't care any more about rules than I do." He found that hard to believe.

"The British already have an army gathered," Liam persisted. "Once the Continent is demilitarized-"

Sybil interrupted him. "I doubt any soldier has the appetite for a new war in Ireland."

"What else are they going to do?"

"What does _anyone_ do? Go home to their families, to their jobs."

"What jobs? The country doesn't need their labor. _Obviously_." Sybil rolled her eyes.

"I have to say Liam, I don't think the British people care much about Ireland," Tom spoke up. "None of the people I knew over there did. And the English are tired of war."

Liam raised his hands in surrender. "Look, I hope you're right- I'd certainly prefer to be in the pub than in prison. Or worse." He stubbed out his cigarette. "But you have to admit, now would be a time to strike."


	63. Chapter 63: The Royal Hibernian Part II

_Thank you so, so much as always!_

_A little time travel in this chpt before we go back to Mary and Edith's arrival. I hope you like it- it's definitely darker, but it was exciting to write and I think Tom and Sybil are strong enough characters for the tougher subject matter. Will leave a longer note about that and__ review re: danger in Ireland in comments. _

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire<strong>, ****May 1920****

His Lordship had been quite clear upon their return from London that he only wanted to see his wife- not Sybil and definitely not _him_- and he did not want any intrusion or interruption while he reported back to her his conversation with Secretary Shortt. Once His Lordship and Her Ladyship were behind closed doors, Thomas took the chance to sneak across the gallery to those family rooms which were forbidden to him. A summer storm was on the horizon and the house was darker than the hour. He placed a surreptitious knock on her door. He hoped Branson wouldn't be there- _Branson_, _that bloody idiot_, who could walk wherever he pleased upstairs, _even as a wanted criminal._

He heard a rustling and then she was there, in a bright blue dress, one hand on the baby. "Thomas!" she exclaimed. She was obviously surprised to see him at the threshold of her bedroom, but had the kindness and courtesy not to show it. He had always liked her. In fact, her only strike in his mind was her choice of a husband.

"Can I come in?" he asked with a dodgy glance. "Are you alone?"

"My, Thomas- is that a come-on?" Sybil teased as she stepped back to let him in. "The War's over. You don't have to pretend to be my secret beau to ward off the cad officers anymore. Besides," she laughed as she hugged her belly, "I think my condition speaks for itself these days!"

"The work of your secret beau." He couldn't help but smile- not about Branson, but because it was their private joke and because she would make a wonderful mother. "Just not me."

"Ha, true. I'll have to tell Tom that." Thomas could tell when she was pretending to be positive and he could tell she was pretending now. It upset him. She did not deserve what her husband was putting them through. "He'll find it very funny."

He turned serious. "Look, I can't be here, so I'll make it quick, but here's a heads-up from an old friend," he started. "Whatever the Home Secretary has on you, your father knows. I don't know any more details than that. But he's seen the file."

Her brow furrowed. "On Tom, you mean?"

Thomas shook his head. "No. The file on _you_."

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<strong>, ****March 1920****

Liam stood, dripping, in the entry of their flat. "Your problem, it's handled," he said, perfectly calm as he watched her absorb the news. The floor around where he stood was staining dark with rain droplets. Another time, she would have badgered him to stand on the mat _that is what it's there for_. Not tonight. "Or it will be, in about an hour." He reached for a cigarette.

"You can't smoke in here." It was a rote reminder, delivered in a rote and neutral voice. She sounded almost far away. Another time, he would have tried to argue that Tom was at work and who would know but now he just removed his empty hand from his pocket, silently. "Do you want a drink?" she asked. He did not. "Have you eaten?" She made a vague gesture toward the kitchen. "I could heat something up."

"I can't stay." She nodded, understanding what he meant. "I just thought you'd want to know." He turned to leave, then halted and turned back: "Do you want to see for yourself?"

The taxi-cab raced north over the lit-up Liffey, despite the driver's protest about their requested destination: "_But that's on the south side._" In fact, it was just a short walk from the flat, but _always take a cab and never directly. _She expected Liam would have to make some sort of explanation for the circuitous route, but all he said was, "_I know where it is._" And the driver drove, without instruction, north, twice around Parnell Square, then east to get lost in the port traffic and back over the river once more, to a location a short walk from the flat.

Sybil stared out the rain-streaked window, hands folded in her lap, while Liam bounced his knee between them. She wondered if the driver would report them. _You can never tell these days_. Everyone spied for someone. He dropped them on the corner- _always corners, never addresses_- and refused to take their money with the valediction: "_Up the rebels_." The watchword of the revolution, and it came out hot; it had been stoked in his heart. _You can tell by the way they say it_. Liam told him he would contribute the fare to the Ireland fund. The driver nodded. _He's one of us. _The cab disappeared into the night._  
><em>

Liam had told her to wear a dark coat if she had one; she did not, but her nurse's cape was reversible and inside-out the hospital crest could not be identified. _The best thing one can be in this city is anonymous. _The rain was falling steadily and they walked swiftly. "Sorry I don't have an umbrella." It was no bother, she told him. Her cape had a hood and she put it up. He commented that she looked like some kind of Celtic spirit, with her face hidden in shroud. "Or Death." It was not quite a joke.

They crossed to a different corner- _always corners, never addresses- but never the actual corner either- _and turned down a commercial block which was deserted as always after the close of business, but for one frosted-pane window glowing orange with artificial light. _The Hotel Dublin_, read the placard on the wall. It had one star etched underneath.

The lobby, such as it was (the space between the door and the staircase that could be crossed in a long stride and a reception desk crammed in the corner) could barely hold the two of them, so the proprietess stayed behind the desk. She was older, but not as old as she looked and her skin was remarkably pale, almost translucent. Sybil could see her veins and reflexively listed them off in her head- _cephalic, basilic, median basilic- _yes, she still knew them all, she was still good, she could win her job back after the baby came. She loved her little baby but she hated not to work and there were too few people who understood that it could be both. She tried to think of her pregnancy as a practicum- and she did marvel at how her body and her baby naturally accommodated each other, an appreciation she could never have gained from an anatomy book or a stint in Maternity- but she preferred to be praised for her cape than her swollen stomach. No suck luck though- the Irish were a people who canonized motherhood.

The proprietess greeted Liam by name in a soft voice that fit her frail form and Sybil felt obscenely young and vital next to her. There was an invoice visible on the desk addressed to "Miss A. Croyle, Proprietor" and only then did Sybil notice how deeply Miss Croyle was blushing as dark, handsome Liam made small chat with her. _A spinster_. Sybil couldn't imagine it; she didn't remember her life before Tom and their little, loved-up flat.

"Any deliveries?" he asked.

"Yes. This morning," she answered importantly. "I left it for you in the usual place." Liam disappeared under the staircase and Miss A. Croyle turned a hard stare at Sybil, whose stomach peeked out as she stamped the rain off her cape.

"When are you due?" the proprietess demanded.

Sybil drew her cape protectively around her. This was not the reaction her baby usually received. "June."

"Oh for shame!" she sputtered furiously. "For shame!"

She looked to say more, but Liam reappeared with a bound sheaf of papers; the exposed envelope had King George's stamp upside-down. Everyone in Dublin had an opinion about whether this was a petulant or significant gesture. _It'll make certain they search your mail- They're already searching it, w__e're under martial law, or haven't you heard? _Sybil believed it was important- but then, she knew firsthand the power of small rebellions.

Liam asked Miss Croyle for the key, which she retrieved from one of the boxes on the wall. "Thanks, we won't be long. This way," he nodded at Sybil. "Come on." He rounded the banister and went up the stairs at pace and she followed, Miss Croyle's eyes indicting her with every step. _This is how people have affairs, _she realized_. _She looked differently at the room doors now and they looked different to her.

"One second." She had to pause to catch her breath on the fourth landing. Her heart was pounding. "I can't take them as fast as normal."

They climbed to the top, the eighth floor, where the hall was illuminated with one naked bulb. Even in the poor light she could see that the runner was filthy and she wondered the last time this floor had been serviced. Liam strode toward a door in the middle. The number on his key was 12, but the room was unmarked; there was a discoloration on the door where the number-plate used to be. Sybil's stomach clenched in fear of what was on the other side.

The answer: a sitting-room, over-decorated in dusty rose-and-cream, with no doors or windows. It was a set, a vignette, a room striving to look perfectly nice but wasn't. The settee was too prominent and so was the sideboard. They were the only two pieces of furniture in the room that looked used. Sybil suddenly wanted very much to be home.

Liam walked with purpose to the corner where there was, in fact, a door that had been wallpapered over. "Put out the light," he instructed. _Watch out for_ s_hadows_. Only when it was dark did he open it- a portal into the underworld.

It was an open space, completely bare- no plaster on the walls, just exposed brick and metal, and the floor was littered with sawdust. "They pack the guns in it," Liam explained. There were two windows covered by blinds; he went to one and crouched down. _Watch out for windows_. She would have liked to put the cradle under the window in their bedroom- their little baby, cradled in light- but not now, not with the city as it was. Liam peered out, then beckoned her to come over. She did, careful too to avoid the windows.

She hitched up her dress, knelt down unsteadily beside her brother-in-law and looked through the blinds with him to where the finest hotel in the city had its torches lit. "The Royal Hibernian," he said in a hushed voice. "That's where he is."

"I know that hotel." The white staircase. The glass canopy. The gilded French doors that opened to the dining room and then the Grand Ballroom. "My sisters stayed there when they came." _Ten months and one lifetime ago_.

"Right. _La ti da_." He shifted on his haunches. "I bet it's nice inside, eh?"

"It has its own orchestra," she remembered, "and it's '_crawling with English officers.'_" She threw a look at him. "That's what _you_ said."

He smiled. "Well, at least _one_ English officer- we hope." It seemed an odd thing to smile about, though she did hope for it. His smile faded. "This one is different, you know," he said softly. "This isn't some Irish constable loyal to his pension. This is a British army field officer. He fought in the Marne." She knew- oh, did she. "He's really one of them."

_The punishment will be different too- _he didn't say it, but he didn't need to_. _She didn't reply that it would be fine, or ask a stupid question like "_Will the reprisals be very bad, do you think_?" because of course they would be. Even if the British weren't able to execute the assailants, they would find others to kill in their place and that was worse, in a way. Someone would die for this. She responded to Liam the best way she knew how- with the task at hand. She craned her head over his shoulder. "What should I be looking at?"

He focused on her question. "See the porter?" Sybil found him in a claret-and-brass uniform at the bottom of the stairs and nodded. "Keep an eye on him." Liam pointed to the building opposite. "Top floor, left window." As if on cue, the light inside blinked three times. _A signal._ Her heart started to race. She glanced at Liam, cool and ready now that it had started. _Did you think you could just watch, unseen, above it all? You're not God_, she chided herself. _You can't be a bystander here. _Patrons were going in and out of the hotel just as she and Mary and Edith had so recently. None of them had any clue what was about to happen.

"What now?" she whispered.

"Now we need him to hurry the feck up."

"The dinners there take forever," she told him. "They're ten courses. No, really."

They waited. The rain came in the window and bounced off the sill onto their laps and the floor. Her knees started to hurt. He flexed his hands. "I just want to do this and go have a drink my girl." He threw her an impish smile. "I'm a romantic, Princess, no matter what you think." It was an odd time to kid, but it helped cut the tension.

Then Liam sat up with a start. "That's him!" It was. Brigadier B. Edmund Lowell- Sybil recognized his uniform and his gait as he came out of the hotel with self-produced fanfare. _Oh, no, that's-_

"He's drunk." She could smell the Scotch on his breath.

"Idiot," Liam muttered. "You'd think they'd want to make it _hard_." The Brigadier stumbled at the top step and Sybil was embarrassed for him. Liam watched intently- "When he hits the second-to-last one..." But the Brigadier stopped halfway down, raised his arm with his one star and started to sway like a symphony conductor. "What the feck?" Liam leaned forward. "What's he doing?" And then, he started to sing- nonsensical syllables in a classical melody.

"It's Strauss," Sybil told Liam. They watched as the Brigadier spun and loped to his own music. He was drunk, but it seemed more than that; so many of the soldiers had come back funny in the head. She felt a modicum of professional sympathy for this patient in need of care. _Would he really have done_-? _Stop._ That's how they _wanted_ her to think. They wanted her to doubt. It didn't matter now anyway. "The Emperor's Waltz."

"You lot are so queer," he replied, amused. "I couldn't name a Strauss tune if my life depended on it." The Brigadier resumed his wobbly descent. Liam remarked, "There are worse ways to go out than dancing."

The Brigadier danced to an old tune from an old world, a world that had ceased to exist, a world where this could never take place successfully. It was so quick and quotidian too: a man reached a second-to-last step. A porter dropped a white handkerchief on the sidewalk. A light in a top-floor window went out. And a motorcycle screeched around the corner and fired.

"Liam," Sybil said, her voice not shaky at all, "you don't work in Finance anymore, do you?"

* * *

><p><strong>June 19, 1919<strong>

"The orchestra is grand, isn't it?" Edith gushed. "Everyone thought records would render orchestras obsolete. I am very glad to hear everyone proven wrong!" The music ceased briefly as one piece ended and another began. Edith listened for a moment. "This is Strauss- The Emperor's Waltz_- _isn't it, Sybil?"

Sybil had barely noticed the music. The women at the opposite table were staring at her haircut again. "If you say so."

"_Remember_, old Thayer used to make you play it until it was perfect?" Edith went on. "Which it never was. A whole summer of lessons, _nothing_ but Strauss and all because Sybil refused to practice!"

"I didn't want to practice." This was mercifully the final course before dessert. "I wanted to play outside, like every other child on earth."

"Except Edith," Mary commented. Sybil grinned at her. It wasn't kind, but it was familiar- and in a strained conversation, familiar trumped all.

"You never were musically inclined, either of you," Edith sniffed. "I can't sing, but at least I can play a simple waltz." She stabbed at some spring peas on her plate.

"I'm afraid we're terrible company tonight," Mary apologized. "We're just tired from the trip."

Sybil forced a smile. That's not why the conversation dragged. There were simply too many topics that had to be avoided, for one reason or another: Branson. Branson's family. Money. Papa. The rumors about Sybil in London. Richard. Matthew. Downstairs. Politics. Sex. _The Irish problem_.

That left the already much-discussed journey and the meal. Sybil didn't have the heart to tell them she had lost her taste for foie gras. They sipped their drinks often to fill in the spaces. Sybil politely asked after people she didn't care about and searched out the clock. She couldn't help but think of Tom, out with Liam and Clare at the dance hall. She missed her sisters, she had wanted this visit so much, but she did not want to play Lady Sybil anymore. And from the stares and the whispers, she knew no one in this room believed her in the part. She was either a fraud, a poor relation, or a traitor to her class- they resented her either way. She didn't care though. She didn't care what this place thought.

Sybil surveyed the room. Almost all the patrons were old. The music was old. The food was old. The manners, the speech, the subjects discussed were old, outdated and irrelevant. After a month in Dublin- the city, _the real world_- dinner at the Royal Hibernian Hotel felt like a museum exhibit. She and Aileen should take a field trip here- Aileen wouldn't believe that people lived like this in the 20th century, with peacock fans and eight different forks.

Mary turned to her during the flambe. "So darling, are you all set for Saturday?"

"I think so- the church, the restaurant, my dress," she ticked off. "We'll pick up the cake before the ceremony. We lucked out with the flowers. With Easter late this year, the Whitsunday arrangements are still in bloom-"

"Aren't Whitsunday flowers red?" Edith interrupted.

"So what?" Sybil slid a gauging glance at Mary. "The color of the Holy Spirit."

Edith snorted. "The color of _something_."

"I think they're beautiful," Sybil replied defensively. "They have these wild, long stems growing every which way on the altar." _Red and wild and holy- l__ike love. Like them, the other night. _Tom agreed. "_It suits us_," he had said when they had done their walk-through at the church, "_and it's free. Also like love._" But what did Edith know about any of that? "It's marvelous and very joyous."

"Red? For a _wedding_?" Edith spluttered. She tried to solicit a confirming opinion from Mary, but Mary refused to meet her eye; still, she could surmise why Edith was upset. "It's _ridiculous_."

"Well, it's done now," Mary settled the matter. "Let's have tea in our room. Sybil, do you want to come up for bit?" She stifled a yawn. "Though I can't say I am long for the night."

"Actually, I think I'll leave you two to rest and join Tom and his brother out. They're at the dance hall."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"They're quite popular here and perfectly respectable," Sybil assured. "Some are better on certain nights, others for certain dances. The one we're going to does tango, but samba is all the fad now."

"Can _you_ samba?" Mary asked. _  
><em>

"I've never tried!" Sybil replied with spirit. "Ask me tomorrow." She turned to Edith. "I know Mary won't, but you're welcome to come, Edith. I'd love it if you would."

Part of Edith did want to, but Papa had said no. Plus, there made two couples and her, a lonely fifth. And all Sybil would do is show off and make Edith feel like a rube. "I don't think so."

"Come on, it'll be fun!" But Edith was adamant. "If this is about Papa's little _edict_-" Sybil's rage flared up. "He doesn't know what he's talking about! It's perfectly safe. _I_ go out all the time!"

Edith and Mary had argued as much to their father. "_What your sister does," _he had told them through clenched teeth,_ "_is __not__ my concern anymore. S_he has made that more than clear to me." _The pain in his voice had battled them back. But Mary had said not to burden Sybil with all that so Edith said only, "You're the rebel in the family."

"Fine, then." Sybil stood up. "I'll see you both tomorrow." She kissed them and left in a hurry.

Mary laid down her napkin on the table. "You could have gone, you know."

"I know," Edith replied. It felt more comfortable now that it was just the two of them, as if a guest had just gone home. "Sybil's changed a lot."

"Do you think?"

"Don't you?"

Mary shook her head. "The opposite actually," she answered with a small smile. "I think she seems more herself than ever."

* * *

><p><em>AN: A heavy chapter. There will be fun with the girls, but I do think some part of the reunion would have been hard. As Mary says in 2x07, Sybil's choice basically broke up the family and Mary and Edith have been left to deal with the aftermath at home, while Sybil's dived into her new life. So they'll bond definitely, but they need to find their way there. _


	64. Chapter 64: The Royal Hibernian III

_So much to say. First, thank you for the Highclere recognition! I'm very humbled and grateful. There is a lot of writing talent in the DA fandom, so it's quite an honor._

_Second, 63. Thank you for the comments of all stripes. I reconfigured this chapter to provide some insight and I'll leave a longer comment as well. Next chapter: __Sisters, dance hall, sex. All fun, I promise. _

_Finally, 200k+ words! At some point, this became a novel. I'm not sure how that happened, but I can't thank you all enough for reading and reviewing. Thanks to the recent reader for the Irish corrections. _

* * *

><p>To understand that night, it was necessary to understand the war- how quickly and terribly it turned in September of 1919 when the British Empire declared its <em>by any means necessary<em> policy toward Ireland, how sharply the country was divided between _us_ and _them _and Dublin in 1920 was at the heart of it all, a place and time that did not much allow for nuance- say, a family that was both Irish and English, a reporter at a republican newspaper, well-sourced within the rebel ranks, married to a member of the British ruling class.

Dublin, as they said, was a small city where everyone knows everyone. Indeed, among the Dubliners' harshest epithets was _doran_: "stranger." A person not of this place, a person to be exiled; almost no one took in _dorans_, sold to _dorans_, or served _dorans _and the ones who did were suspect_._

In this fraternal city, there always someone to mind the children, to lean on for a bit of help in the hard times, to buy a pint on the house. It also meant that when there was an attack, even on the other side of town, it was never to someone anonymous, it was always someone's cousin or schoolteacher or baker or neighbor. So the violence never felt sporadic, it felt inescapable. And the menace, _the threat, _was omnipresent and the threat defined the mentality of the city because threats, unlike acts of violence which are responded to with reflex, make one complicit by demanding the question: _what would you do_?

The people of Dublin lived daily with that paradox of choice and the added handicap of imperfect knowledge- shifting political sands, inter-side ruptures, never knowing who and what to trust or what tomorrow might bring- in the context of the highest of stakes: fidelity and betrayal, life and death. _Choose wisely. Or as best you can._

And yet, despite all of that, the city was so full of hope- because any day Ireland didn't surrender to the British Empire was a day that Ireland- poor, tiny Ireland!- was _defeating _the British Empire, _the British Empire_, unrivaled in history. And it was due to the spirit and fortitude of a young generation who believed that freedom and the birth of this new world was their destiny.

To understand that night, it was necessary to understand how deeply Tom and Sybil believed that destiny tracked with their own, from that very first time they had stood beside each other in Ripon, and they had both looked up.

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, 1920<strong>

With the exception of one sentence- "_Dearest Papa_"- uttered under false pretenses on her first return and the occasional judgment lobbed across the dinner table, she had not spoken to her father since the day she left for Ireland. When they visited, she saw him only in presence of other family- he barely nodded when he passed her on the stairs; if she came into the library when he was alone, he would excuse himself. He was glad she stopped coming down to breakfast. He simply could not bear to be around her in any personal way.

So when he comes to her bedroom- _their_ bedroom- one afternoon, a week after he'd delivered the death sentence on their new life- "You can never return to Ireland" and _the little flat it's gone and the hospital gone the newspaper and medical college all gone, gone_ in a breath- she knows it's not to offer parental comfort. She suspects it's to probe her about the file the Home Secretary has on her; he has withheld that information all week and there must be some reason he's keeping it in his arsenal.

Robert has never been in _their room_- how Cora refers to it, which she knows he hates- and when he enters, he tries not to notice the brown bathrobe on the armoire or the smell of aftershave. It's an expensive scent; she must have bought it for him. _I must have bought it for him_. The room is messy, with odds and ends and books and papers piled on the vanity- _whatever she could throw into two suitcases, no doubt._ He spies among them_The Manual of Gynecology_ and _Principles and Practices of Obstetrics_, doctor's textbooks which promise illustrations and photographs- photographs!- _probably in violation of twelve kinds of decency laws_. "You really ought to let the maids clean up in here," he snipes. It is admittedly a bad start.

She offers him no quarter as he stammers for a banal opener- Isis, the garden roses. There is, of course, plenty of banality in her unopened letters, but of course he doesn't know that. He could ask about the baby- his first grandchild- but he can't really bear that either.

It becomes evident there is no topic less difficult to broach than the one he's come to discuss, so he states it outright. "The Home Secretary has a file on you." He can't tell if that's news to her. "It said," he relays with great difficulty, "that they assigned a British officer to '_work you,_' whatever that means." He had almost choked when Shortt said that to him, just like that, about his _daughter_. Shortt was a provincial, a preacher's son, in with police unions, and was no doubt unperturbed by such a coarse turn of phrase. Robert was perturbed though and part of him- but only part- hopes she will elaborate now. She does not. "They had hoped to turn you."

"Yes."

"But you never told them anything."

"No." She looks directly at him for the first time in a year. "I don't inform on my friends and certainly not on my family." _That_ is his Sybil, strong-willed and righteous, ever since she was a child.

"Quite right." Now, she _is_ surprised. Robert has no sympathy for Ireland, but that is noble conduct. He cannot say that explicitly, lest it be read as an endorsement, but he is proud. "Ten times they sent a top man, an army Brigadier, to try and convince you, but you didn't budge. Well," he finishes sadly, as his hand falls unconsciously on her knee, "I could have told them that."

Twelve months of estrangement and suddenly, with that small tenderness, he is her Papa again. Perhaps that is why the correction slips and she confides something not even her husband knows. "It was eleven times. He came eleven times."

He frowns. "The file said ten."

_Oh, Papa_. There is a file, signed by an important man with an important title, stamped with the seal of the Realm. The file said ten, the file cannot be wrong. _He can't understand any of this_. It was stupid to have said any more. "The last one was unofficial."

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, March 1920<strong>

People screamed. The porter rushed with false concern to the body. Guests tried to run out, guests tried to run in and there was a jam at the hotel doors until a fat Royal constable ran up, wildly brandishing a billy club and shouted, "Everyone inside! Everyone inside!" Sirens screamed with increasing proximity; the ambulance arrived. Sybil watched the scene play out in a blur, streaks of frantic, colored motion behind a screen of rain.

Two medical attendants jumped out of the back of the ambulance, raced to the Brigadier's body and ripped open his shirt. Sybil reflexively felt the adrenaline quickened by an emergency response. She had felt nothing as it happened, but this she _understood. _One attendant attempted a resuscitation. "Oh, there's no point in that," she said out loud. "He couldn't possibly be alive."

The medics quickly made the same determination. Liam crossed himself- a baroque gesture, given the circumstances. "You have to respect when a life is taken," he reasoned.

Sybil looked back at the scene, where a sheet now covered the body as well as the blood on the stairs. Her problem, handled. "No," she said. "I don't." Inside her, the baby danced. _A life in. A life out._ The world went on.

The inspectors had started to swarm, so Liam helped her to her feet. "Careful now," he urged in a soft voice. He was always very sweet about the baby. "I hope we didn't wake him."

"He's awake," she informed him, decidedly unsentimental. "He's been awake and kicking the whole time."

Her words hit him like a slap. It was a statement of fact, but he heard it as an accusation of child abuse and it left him uncharacteristically diffident as they returned to the dreadful sitting-room. Sybil, by contrast, had detached from the situation as she did on bad days at the hospital. Stoic and clinical. _Nothing can faze us_. This was an emergency response; she could sort out the morality later. Right now, she needed to get home to the little flat, where everything was in proportion.

"We'll have to wait here for a bit," Liam said. "The police will have cordoned off the whole area by now and we won't want to have to answer any questions." He offered her the settee, but she refused to sit on that. He studied her as she paced in place, her hands on the baby for wont of her hips. They were the same age, but with her hair pinned back on both sides, she looked very young.

"How long?"

"An hour? Maybe two?"

"I have to get home."

"Don't worry, you'll be home before Tom." She chortled- _truancy_ was hardly her concern now- and paced some more. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She felt out of control. She felt claustrophobic. She hated this room. _Nothing can faze us_. "I work at a hospital, where people die all the time."

"Not like that, they don't."

"Oh, really? Have you ever seen eyes after they've been seared by mustard gas? Or the stump of a person who performed an amputation _on himself_? Have you heard a burn victim scream?" she challenged. "I didn't think so. That? That was nothing. Perforation of the pericardium with traumatic aortic rupture, resulting in instantaneous death. Case closed."

The medical nomenclature calmed her- its precision, how it described but never characterized, like some kind of an amoral and unromantic poetry, appropriate for the circumstances. She sat down in a wicker chair and added, apropos of nothing, "We fill out all the paperwork. The doctors are supposed to, but they never do. They just sign it." He opened his mouth, but she pressed on. She needed to keep control of the conversation, at least. "So, you work for that Squad?"

"I work for the Ministry of Finance."

"Right," she acquiesced.

"Right," he affirmed.

"Does your mother know? Does Clare?" she demanded. "I know Tom doesn't."

That, he heard as she intended it- as an accusation and a conviction. "Tom's an idealist."

Sybil was affronted by his undertone of insult. "Fine, he's an idealist and you're a murderer. I know which one I'd choose."

"I know which one you _called_," Liam shot back, hurt, "when it was _your_ arse on the line." She was chastened by that; she had turned to him. "And it's not murder, it's war." Her own profession, thrown back at her.

"I'm sorry." She waited for him to accept, but he did not. "You didn't deserve that. Not from me."

Liam stared, wounded, at her. "I won't fake compunction, because I don't have any about this. Everyone wants freedom for Ireland. Everyone wants to win the war. Well, someone has to pull the trigger."

"My cousin was an officer in France and my father helped take Pretoria." She was surprised, in this moment, to realize she had never wondered how many men they had killed or what other horrors of war they had participated in. "I understand."

"I know _you_ do," he retorted. "My brother reads about the war, he writes about the war, but he has never _fought_ the war so he doesn't." Liam ran a hand through his hair and she saw the stress he'd been under. He worked for Sinn Fein and so had been a wanted man since September. "We do what has to be done, not least so the rest of them can keep their consciences clear. But they'll all fly the flag on Independence Day, won't they, whenever that comes."

"Tom is not some fair-weather come-along." She refuted the insinuation sharply. "He is committed. In a different role."

"Aye." His next observation was meant to be kind. "Tom's not cut for this. They don't arm soldiers with ideals. It's not a particularly useful weapon on the battlefield."

Liam's assessment matched her own about Tom. He wasn't cut for war- she had always known that. When the reprisals started. When they shot the Tsar. When he had been called up and she had a panic attack behind the hospital, after that poor private had died. But she did not think that a defect. "I wouldn't want him any other way." She shuddered to think of her husband as one of those men who came back without his soul. _The Brigadier_. "Everyone should be like him."

"Everyone should be, but since they're not, we need people like me. And you." Liam now challenged her. "People who don't shrink to do what needs to be done."

* * *

><p>They left it there. For the next hour, Liam read his stack of papers and she mused on what he had said. And then, out of the blue:<p>

"You know we have a mouse in the flat."

He looked up, puzzled, a half-read letter on his lap. "Of course- Moby Dick. Everyone who comes round your place knows Moby Dick." She smiled at the recollection of Tom stalking around the flat with a broom_ I'm like fecking Captain Ahab with this thing_ as she stood in the doorway and laughed. Liam smiled for her. "The mouse who can't be killed."

"Tom accused me of undoing the traps."

"Did you?"

"I never copped to it to Tom, but yes."

"Why?"

"I thought it was cheating," she said. "And the mouse never bothered me."

* * *

><p>After some time, Liam went to assess the situation outside. He reemerged and reported, "They've re-opened the street. I think we're safe to leave."<p>

"You can stay at ours if you need."

"Thanks, but I want to check on Clare." Clare lived in a neighborhood close to Dublin Castle, a place _dorans_ went to satisfy their baser needs. "It's bound to be hot there tonight when all those drunk Tans hear about this."

She advised him, for the umpteenth time, "You should marry Clare."

"I have a Mam, Princess," he smiled faintly, "but thank you. You have your hands full with your Tom and that little rebel in there. You take care of them."

He wanted to escort her home, but she waved him off. "It's not necessary." She took off her cape and inverted it, so that the crimson side with the white medical cross faced out. "No one will bother me in this." She draped it around her and she wondered if the day would come when republican girls would start disguising themselves as nurses. Already, Tans had started to dress as Volunteers and Vounteers as Tans, so everyone shot at everyone now. She wondered why anyone- everyone- didn't simply don the untouchable cross on the battlefield. It seemed an arbitrary thing to respect.

He walked in front of her back down the dim hallway, but at the head of the stairs, she stopped. "Liam."

He turned. "Yes?"

"Do you think he would have?"

He considered carefully what to say and decided on, "We'll never have to know now, will we?" She accepted that it was probably a question best left unanswered. "And you? What would you have done?"

"We'll never have to know," she demurred.

"_I_ know, Princess. I know." She knew too. It disconcerted her, but she did. "You'd have put five between his eyes if he'd forced your hand."

A chamber held six bullets. "Why five?"

"You'd have the wits to save one bullet. You never know."

As they started down the stairs, she had one more question. "I never asked: what was your job?" He threw a quizzical look over his shoulder. "In- _that_."

"My job?" he echoed. "I picked up the mail."

She was flabbergasted. "You didn't have a hand in it?"

"No. I just knew you could see the Hibernian from here."

"Honestly?"

"God's honor," he confirmed. She had not abetted an assassination. That was a modicum of innocence restored and he could do more for her. "The Brigadier was on the list. He was on the list before he ever inserted himself into your life. What happened would have happened exactly the same way if you'd stayed home and found out about it in Tom's paper tomorrow."

* * *

><p>In the taxi-cab, she thinks about ideals- truth and loyalty- comprehensible in abstraction but ever-elusive in application. Allegiance oaths are on everyone's tongue in Dublin these days, whether it's the untenable demand that Ireland swear an Oath to the King or the revolutionaries at secret meetings who sign their names with blood. She has only ever taken one vow and can't understand any other.<p>

She had always maintained a considerable amount of deception in her life. She lied about Gwen, about rallies, about what duties she was required to perform as a VAD ("_Oh no, Mama, nothing like that. We mostly deliver meals and the men are always covered with sheets_."). She lied about where she was when she was in the garage, lied to herself about the intensity of her feelings- her frustration, her anger, her love- the imminence of a "drastic" denouement, _no_ _going back_. She had a secret proposal, a secret elopement, a secret courtship after its failure and a secret plan to move to Dublin. All the nights Tom came to her in secret at his mother's before they were married. No, she had no problem with deception, she was not afraid of the dark. But this was different. She had never lied to Tom- not explicitly or by omission- since the proposal that first bound them together.

_Never_- until now.

The Brigadier. The ten visits, then the eleventh one. What had just happened.

_Forget it_. She didn't ever dwell on death. Better him than her. _Almost home_.

When Tom comes home, he'll stand on the mat until his rain clothes are off. He'll hang his coat and hat on the same hook. She'll admire the line of his shoulders and feel quite smug that she's married a man who's young and vigorous and handsome and oh yes, she has the good fortune to be in love with him too. He'll kiss her hello and linger, just for a second, hand curled around her cheek, to savor it, mark it, commemorate how hard-won it is. _A life, realized._

There is a version of tonight, the version in the proprietess' mind, in which she went to The Hotel Dublin and deceived her husband. And a sliver- just a sliver- of that is true. But truth is binary, isn't it? It either is or it isn't. Her father once taunted her: "_Are you so knowledgeable about the great world_?" At 17, in her ignorance, she had been sure she was. Tonight, she was not sure she wanted to be. It made her heart ache, as the taxi drove home in the rain.

* * *

><p>She waited anxiously for Tom to come home and cleaned to avoid her mind. She folded the cream crotchet blanket, then re-folded it to make sure it lay even over the arm of the sofa. She stoked the fire. She poured a bit of whisky into a tumbler for Tom, then drank it herself. It made her feel sick- the baby did not tolerate liquor either- but it was a relief too; it was at least a <em>reason<em> to feel as she did. She chewed on her nail. She wished for a cigarette. She wanted her husband. Finally, he came.

"Hello, darling." She went right to him. "You're very late."

"I know, love," he said, as he hung up his hat. "I'm sorry."

"Trouble with the printer again?"

"No. Checkpoint." He leaned in and kissed her, but he was too excitable to linger. "The trams were stopped at the river and we had to get off for frisking, single-file- the line stretched all the way down Eden Quay!"

She started. The suppression order. _Sedition_. "Did they search your bag?"

"They did. But this Irish character raised no alarm." He unearthed a folder from his bag. She opened it and found it full of fake contracts.

"Tom Branson, Insurance Salesman?" She had to laugh at the unlikeliness. "What do you know about insurance?"

"_Automobile_ insurance," he boasted. "So if I did get questioned, I could talk their ears off about engine failure in English cars."

"Aren't you clever." He grinned at her, sandy hair falling into one eye. In that moment, she felt much older than him; measured by experience, she might have been. "And the Auxies let you through?"

"Oh, this wasn't an Auxie job." He went into the galley kitchen, out of sight. "This was enlisted military. Apparently, a British army officer was shot dead outside his hotel. The Hibernian."

She tried to sound normal. "How awful."

"I doubt that," he called back. "He was a monster." He reappeared with some water. "You know that story I did, about the reprisal in Kildare? He ran that operation." _ Yes. I know_. "War hero," he spat. "Those people weren't German soldiers. They were civilians."

"Seems there's no distinction these days," she rued.

"He's in Hell now, if there's any justice." He came over and laid a kiss on her head. "Syb, your hair's damp," he noticed as his fingers combed through it.

"Oh. I went for a walk." He frowned. "Just a short one. You know the baby likes a little air after supper."

"I know you hate when I hen at you, but I wish you wouldn't do that- at night, alone. You never when you'll run into a barricade, men with their blood up, an Englishwoman with Irish papers- you just never know."

They had been over this before, so she conceded the point- _no, you never do_. "I have a plate for you. Shall I heat it up?"

"I've eaten actually. Jack Casey's wife sent in a pie."

Sybil made a face. "Tom Branson's wife never sends dinner," she muttered as she was convinced people did. Her mother-in-law certainly did.

"Tom Branson's wife is busy learning how to save them all from the heart attack they'll have after Mrs. Casey's pies." She thanked him with a smile for his strident defense.. "Were you able to study much today?"

"Yes. I did the practice exam for algebra and conjugated a hundred Latin verbs." She had finished just before Liam knocked, as hard as that was to believe now. "Will you check them for me?"

"You didn't check the maths yourself?"

"I was afraid," she admitted. "If I got it all wrong again, I would have screamed."

"Go get them, we'll do it together."

He headed into the bedroom to change out of his suit. She refilled the tumbler with whisky and went into the parlor. The fire was so warm she cracked the window and the crackle mixed with the sound of the rain. She collected her homework from the desk that held Tom's typewriter. They really did have the nicest home, exactly the home she had envisioned. _Our_ _first home_. They'd have to trade it for a two-bedroom in a year if not sooner, but for now, she would appreciate it.

Tom re-emerged in pajamas the color of the throw blanket and Sybil noted with pleasure the orderliness of this one, infinitesimal domain. He settled beside her on the sofa. "I fixed you a drink," which she handed to him. "Let it not be said Tom Branson's wife doesn't take care of him."

"You take excellent care of all of us. And for the record, Casey's wife is dumb as a rock. Not that _you'd_ take any satisfaction in that-"

"I wouldn't!"

"I know you wouldn't. But since you can think and she can't, let her be the cook and you be the doctor." He reached for her algebra assignment, but she pulled it back. "What?"

"You know what." He quirked a brow, but she held firm. "_Doctor's orders._"

"Must I?" She nodded and he retrieved the reading glasses she forced him to buy. "I'm not blind, you know."

"I do, and I mean to keep you that way," she reiterated. "It's terrible for you, hunched over small font all day."

"Reading glasses," he grumbled. "I'm like an old man. You know I'll be twenty-nine my next birthday? And thirty the one after."

"I don't want to hear any complaint from you." Since the onset of fatherhood, Tom had become aware of his own mortality (as well as achievement, money, etc.). She was glad it wasn't just women who had their reason and emotions untethered by expectant parenthood and welcomed the opportunity to appease him. "Age is mostly a condition of mind."

"Easy for you to say. You're younger now than I was when I met you."

"Nonsense. Mary is thirty this year and fresh as a rose."

"Mary is a new bride," Tom countered, "and I bet Matthew doesn't make her wear reading glasses."

"Perhaps you should marry him, then?" Sybil joshed, running a hand through his hair. "You do make an attractive pair. You'd have lovely blond babies. I'm not quite sure how you'd manage them, but-"

"You settle yourself down, Miss, and hand me your schoolwork."

She laughed again- one allusion to libertinism and Tom was suddenly cured of his fear of being an old fogy. "You don't look old, you look scholarly."

"Like a headmaster? Good, I'll put them on when I need to be stern with the young one," he remarked, as he started in on the equations. "This looks very good, darling. Much improved." She laid her head on his shoulder as he proofed. He had excellent attention to task, whether it was cars or newspaper columns. She imagined he had been a very studious child. "This one's not right. If _x_ is 6, then that-"

"Right. It should be five."

"Exactly." When he finished, he handed it back to her. "Only two missed out of thirty. Your work's paid off. You should be proud."

"Not so proud. It's maths for children."

"You can't know what you never learned," he reminded her. "I'm proud of you." He took a quick pass at the Latin, but punted. "It's been too many years for me. You should ask Liam. He has a fancy university education."

"I'm not too worried. I had no trouble with French." She had not thought about what it would be like the next time she saw her brother-in-law, with this between them; she did not want to think about it. "I suppose I'll have to learn Irish as well, if it's to be the official language of the Free State."

"Vernacular no one can speak," he scoffed. "If you ever wonder why Ireland's been conquered for so long..." His face soured as he stared into his drink. "All this hardliner, Irish purity shyte..." It was the fissure that threatened to become a fault line in the New Eireann coalition. He sighed. "This started as a _workers'_ movement."

She put a hand on his arm. It was a tough time for idealism all around. "Let's go to bed and play with the baby."

* * *

><p>All couples have things they do that are private, never shared with anyone but each other, habits and humor idiosyncratic to them. This was theirs.<p>

When the doctor confirmed her suspicion that November afternoon, she had not been able to wrap her head around it. She wandered the streets of Dublin for hours, all the way west to Phoenix Park where she cocked her head curiously at the children- the swaddled infants, the toothy toddlers- but still, it didn't seem real. The walk home took her, by intention or accident, by the bookstore for the School of Medicine. And in those dense, thick books, she had come to know their baby.

She knew his size at every week, where he was positioned, what he responded to and she apprised Tom of all of it. To her delight- and his edification- he found it fascinating. The morning after she told him, as she was getting dressed for work, he came up behind her in the mirror and spread his palms across her unchanged abdomen. "Pregnant? I don't believe you," he teased in her ear. "Where are _you_ going to put a baby?"

"You needn't worry, he's already safely stashed away," she assured him. "Today, he is smaller than your thumb- certainly smaller than other things I care to accommodate," she finished with a wink of promise. She was determined that Tom not feel dispossessed- that it was her and baby now, with him the odd out one. They would do this pregnancy as they did everything,_ together_.

So she invited him to read over her shoulder, explained _no, it doesn't hurt _because her bones softened and bent for the baby, and helped him reconcile the textbook diagrams _12 weeks 18 weeks 24 weeks_ with her own body. "So there's his feet"- she would move his hand- "and I'm pretty sure that's his head." Tom was always interested in how things worked and she told him he would make a fine doctor, if only he could stand the sight of blood.

By March, the seventh month, most of the anatomical concerns had been addressed and their questions now were mostly fanciful.

"Do you think she knows my voice?" he asked, chin on her stomach. "Will she recognize it, when she comes?"

"I don't see why not." He pressed his lips softly to her skin, as if the baby could absorb his love and protection, and the sincerity of it made her heart lurch. "Maybe he'll know you when you kiss him." She stroked his hair. "You're the only one who ever has."

"Do you think she can tell our accents are different?"

"You mean mine and everyone else's?"

"No, just mine and yours. No one else matters. That's what I want to believe, anyway," he chuckled.

"He'll come out with an Irish accent. And when I take him to the park, people will think I've stolen him," she predicted. "Of course, he'll be terribly cute and so well-behaved that I will have been perfectly justified in my action."

Tom reared up. "Sybil, there is _no_ chance that the combination of you and me will produce a person well-behaved. It's just not in our blood, love." She laughed- he had a point. "Besides, I bet she'll talk like you. And her first words will be: '_Papa_-" he mocked the uppity Crawley diction perfectly- '_how can you be my father? You're not even in Burke's_!'"

She pushed her foot on him. "I don't sound like that!"

"You do. Erich once accused me of an aristocratic fetish." He arched a brow at her. "I only like my pillow talk posh, apparently. As if I'd go into a brothel and request an aristo!"

"As if you'd go into a brothel, period," she returned. "Only to unionize the women who worked there, maybe."

"True." He said it with self-deprecation, as if it were a character flaw; Liam's earlier strike at his idealism echoed in her mind. "I can't understand it."

"What?"

"I understand how people can be blind and I understand how they can refuse to look. But I don't understand how people can look but not see another person's misfortune. And then, to exploit it for your own- to see and not care?" He shook his head. "I can't understand that at all."

_Because you are better than this world, _though perhaps not as well-equipped for it_._ She brought her hand to his cheek. "You are a good man, Tom. A very good one. And you will be a wonderful father."

"I hope so." He traced, as he so often did, the familiar, flat path around her hip and then up the now-steep incline. "I don't really have any experience with fathers. Not mine, nor yours either, so..."

"Your father was a reprobate and mine is an ass." Her voice strained. "And you're the only father I want for my baby."

She sounded close to tears, which to Tom came out of nowhere. "What is it, Syb?"

"Nothing. It's nothing." She wiped her eyes. "I came across a story today about a woman who cheated on her husband. She was pregnant, too. It makes me sick to think about."

"I won't defend it, but people have their reasons." He shrugged. "Don't look at me like that. You're usually the first to offer people the benefit of the doubt."

"I can't see _any_ reason-"

"Her husband could be an ax murderer!" Tom posited. "We don't know."

"We don't! That's the _point_." Her reserve and her voice faltered, or maybe it was her voice and then her reserve, when Tom so true and devoted and _so very, very good_ took her hand in his. "Everyone thinks there are things they'd never do and then, circumstances change and- but is it circumstances? Or do we just tell ourselves that to justify? I don't know, Tom," she whispered. "I just don't know and it scares me sometimes." _There_, what Edith could never pinpoint- what Sybil was afraid of.

"Syb, Syb, what is all this?" He cupped her face. The seasoned reporters and husbands at the newspaper had counseled him that expectant wives were prone to nerves about their attractiveness, their husbands' heads being turned. That had never seemed like Sybil but... "You're not worried about us, are you?"

"Of course not."

"Good. Because I think we're better than we've ever been," he reassured her. "We survived your family- barely, at times- but we did and we're stronger for it."

"God, Tom- there's worse problems than dinners with Carson and my father."

"The world isn't perfect of course," he acknowledged, "but it won't ever be. The part of the world we tend- you and me, our life- it's not perfect, but it's damn near to it, Syb." It was closer than he'd ever expected to come in his life. He was born in a tenement in Phibsboro, a truth he held dear in every day he spent with her. He dropped his forehead to hers, let his eyes close. "All I have ever wanted is this- to live with you, to love you. My North Star, always."

"And mine as well..." She moved against him. She wanted to kiss him, to take herself out of the day, to-

But he was not done with what he had to say. "Then let's not worry about what we needn't worry about, like other people's marital woes, alright?"

"Alright." He tipped her chin and kissed her- her mouth, her face, the trace of her neck- and she let him do this worship on her and did not think about whether or not she deserved it, she just felt and reacted. He searched out the band that bound them forever and, as he so often did, slid it up and down to recall the time it had first been placed there, to commemorate a promise, realized. "I'd never break my vow to you. I'd never cheat and I'd never leave. Never, ever. For the record, in case it's on your mind."

"It isn't." And she told him what was.

They made love and she can see them in the mirror- not because they arranged it that way, just because it's a small and odd-shaped room and the vanity had the bed in its perspective- but she likes it, they both do. There's nothing wrong with that either. She has seen things that should never be seen and this isn't one of them.

She had often wondered if the first time many women experienced sex outside of the traditional was expectant motherhood, once the missionary position proved impossible. _What a funny way to come to it_, if they believed- as she had once, in her own naivete- that there was only one permissible way. She had discovered the truth in daring and they did it now not for daring, but for the most sacred reason- their darling joy, so strong and big. And the baby danced.

* * *

><p>Afterward, they lay awake in the dark, neither one able to dispatch the events of the day to sleep. Finally, Sybil spoke the words that had become her daily devotional here in Dublin, a quote from an American abolitionist. The Levinsons had been great abolitionists in the last century and she had asked her grandmother for the family scrapbooks. <em>For the baby, when he's older<em>, she had said, but really, she wanted them for Tom to draw the line to the scrapbooks she dutifully filled with his clippings so he would know was doing the work of history, even if history's labor did not pay very well in the present.

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe," she recited, "the arc is a long one, but I am sure it bends towards justice."

He turned to her on pillow and smiled. "You know I'm not so fond of that quote as you."

"And you know that I think you don't understand it."

They had debated it extensively. _"What's it matter then, what anyone does, if the universe will correct for justice in the end?" _he had argued in her old room._ "I hear in it an alibi. We don't need time to show us what's right. We _know_ what's right and we should hold people to account to do it."_

She turned back and looked up into the black. "It's only to say that we try but there are days when we know we fall short," she spoke her penance, "and even when it all seems lost, we must keep on because somehow, some way, we will get there eventually."


	65. Chapter : The Arrival Part I

_thank you so much as always! _

* * *

><p><strong>Thursday, June 19, 1919<strong>

It was a white, dry afternoon as Tom and Sybil stood at the disembarkation point for the ferry from Holyhead. Gulls circled disinterestedly below the clouds. The day's catch had started to stink. It was not a particularly busy time for the port and the crowd that milled around was a few dozen thin and mostly affiliated with the port.

Sybil sipped a cup of coffee- a soldier's drink, which she had developed a taste for at the hospital- while Tom fiddled with the lines of his cuffs, determined to make them exactly equidistant from the ends of the sleeves of his nicest suit. "Are you sure you don't want some?" Coffee was also a newsman's drink. "The vendor's just over there." Tom shook his head and returned to his task. _Poor boy, _she thought_._ He was nervous. She hadn't realized how much until last night.

"Look." He nodded at the distance, to the faint outline of a ship. "It's here."

* * *

><p>Edith walked around the deck filled with a terrific excitement. Even though they had left the house at six o'clock sharp and even though the car ride to Holyhead had taken more than five hours and the ferry another four, she was invigorated by the sight of the city on the horizon. They were almost there- she and Mary, on their own except for Anna.<p>

Edith had never traveled anywhere without a chaperone, but there had been no option- Papa refused to allow any other family to attend, so Aunt Rosamund was out; he would not foist the task on Carson or Mrs. Hughes and he didn't trust any other staff not to relate to the entire downstairs (theirs and that of every other house) the spectacle they'd seen in Dublin. The exception was Anna, whom no one would dare ask to betray details of the girls' private lives. _And,_ as Mary reminded him, _Anna _is_ a married woman_. Their victory had been secured.

Truthfully, it had never been in doubt. Mama's quiet compliance with their father's decision was contingent on their attendance- even Granny had told Papa not to cross her on that. Already, both sisters were aware that Mama- and Granny too- were playing the long game to get Sybil back. Last night in the parlor before Papa rejoined them, Granny had again counseled Mama through her tears, patted her hand and promised, "_This,_ s_he can do on her own. When she needs you, you'll be with her- here or there. We will make it so_."

In the end, Papa had conceded that it was only four days, the Thursday and Sunday of which would be almost entirely devoted to travel and Saturday to the wedding. That left only Friday and what could really happen in one unsupervised day, after he had all but forbid them to leave the hotel? Fortunately, that question remained rhetorical until about a quarter to six today, when Mama made mention that perhaps they should have broken the trip into two days _as Sybil did_- which was news to Papa, who turned white, then red, then a curious hue of purple.

"_What_?"

Poor Mama, stammering around the admission that Sybil had spent the night at a hotel with Branson in Liverpool- in six weeks, her husband had not reconciled the distance to Dublin with Sybil's late departure time, but oh, he was on the unmanageable cost of two rooms for a man of Branson's means like a shot. "_Go," _Mama ordered Pratt._ "Go now._"

She and Mary watched from the back window as Mama followed Papa back into the house. And when the car turned onto the road, the exhalation from them both was visceral. It had been a long two months and neither could be more relieved to be headed somewhere else.

* * *

><p>As she waited for the ferry to come in, Sybil was not anxious, she was excited. Because it was her sisters, but also because she was about to be married. <em>Married<em>. She was a bride. It came without much fanfare, but it was here- in two days!- _finally_. Even if the visit went horribly- which she did not expect it to- it didn't matter, by Sunday they will have moved on, be married, in their own home and on their way in the world. So she was excited and very, very happy.

But Tom was nervous.

By last night, the little flat finally resembled a home. The bedroom set had been delivered, as had the sofa, the kitchen table and chairs, some lamps. Sybil had purchased dishes and towels and made up the bed. _ _Good enough_. _She had cleaned all day and Tom met her after work with a new kettle so they could serve tea when her sisters came. The plan had been to go have dinner at the pub, but then he was on his hands and knees in his undershirt, scouring the underside of the counter, the crack between the stove and the wall, all the places she had... not quite gotten to. Only one of them had been trained by Carson.

"You don't need to do that," she insisted. "My sisters don't go into the kitchen at home, I'm sure they won't go into the one here." He ignored that and then, she was miffed. She had cleaned for eight hours straight- she had the hands to prove it- and she did not need or want to have her work corrected. _And_ G_od, if his mother gets wind of this..._ "Tom. Let's go. It's good enough."

"This is your family's first impression of your life here." He was resolute as he scrubbed. "Do you want it to be '_good enough_'? Is that how _they _will see it?"

Of all the new encounters she had in Ireland, the most consistent one was with pride. And it was a certain kind of pride- not the kind to be cognizant of with ill and injured veterans, but a pride of class that she could never have understood from the outside. It helped her understand Tom- and for that, she was glad of it. For that, she picked up a piece of steel wool and joined him on the floor. He paid a neighbor boy to bring them fish and chips and a couple of bottles of beer. "Take one for yourself, if you like."

"Tom!"

"What? He's thirteen," he responded to her unspoken protest. "It's not his first, it won't be his last. The kid grinned. "You got a fag for the lady?"

"Course." The boy fished a pack out of his pocket and handed one over.

Tom shut the door and turned to her with a victorious expression. "You were sick in that sink, remember? I know because I held your hair back. No judgment." He tossed the cigarette to her and she caught it. "Good work today."

"You too. And don't you worry," she laughed as she lit up, "my family will just _love_ it here."

They ate their inaugural meal- chips and ale- in the little flat. The first time she'd eaten a chip was in Liverpool- _a lot of firsts in Liverpool_- and the next day, they had landed at this port. _Six weeks_. It seemed at once so recent and so far and she so new and old in the world. But in the metamorphosis, one thing remained fixed- Tom by her side for all of it. "You look very handsome," she said to him now. He had been so handsome that day, with sun on his shoulders and her just- just- awestruck.

"Oh, do I?"

"I think so."

"Well, that's all that matters."

"Quite right." He couldn't help but chuckle- his wife, almost. He had made her that way, he supposed, and he was glad of it; if she lived her whole life with an unshaken belief that she mattered above all else to her husband, he would consider himself a success.

* * *

><p>Edith put her elbows on the railing and tried to imagine her sister. <em>What did Sybil think<em> as the ferry charged through the diaphanous sky and she saw the shape of her new country for the first time? Confronted with the thrill and terror of the unknown, of a million possibilities, not all of them- indeed, not most of them- good? Had she felt thrilled? Scared? Alone?

_"Nothing too drastic, I hope."_

_"It is drastic. There's no going back once I've done it but that's what I want. No going back."_

No, not scared, because Sybil didn't scare. And not alone because she had Branson. Sybil has never been alone and probably could not even comprehend what that would feel like.

_"I don't want to go back either."_

Edith didn't mean that- not as Sybil meant it, anyway- but as ever, in the moment, Edith had upped her ante to keep pace and save face with _the brave one_ among them. Because who didn't want to be brave? But Edith was not a person who liked _drastic_. She did not like confrontation. She did not like ultimatums. She did not want to distress her parents or set the house on edge. She frankly did not believe_ drastic _was ever necessary if people acted in good faith.

Edith and Sybil had never been close; Sybil had a line of allies that included Branson, Mary, their mother, and probably cousin Isobel ahead of her. They were friendly with the occasional squabble, but Edith knew her sister more through observation than relation. She was certainly bold, but brave? Edith wasn't so sure.

She had overheard her father derided at a recent party- par for the course, these past two months. "_He should have set an example. Let her starve._"

_"It's easy to say about someone else's child, but if were yours-_"

"_If it were _my_ daughter? She'd be a daughter of mine no more. And I'd not send my unmarried other two to learn the lesson that their father's word is worthless._"

True, Papa had not held to his original threat against Sybil and he had backed down when Sybil had not. But Edith did not think that when two cars were on a collision course, the driver who yielded was the coward.

* * *

><p>The prow was visible now and the activity on the dock picked up in preparation for arrival. Sybil finished her coffee. Tom took the empty cup and tossed it for her. "Thank you for being here to meet them. I know it's hard to get away when you're on deadline."<p>

"Of course." The horn bellowed, deep and full, as the ferry laid anchor. "I wouldn't have missed it. Our first visitors."

"Our _first_ visitors." She looked up at him. "So we hope." He slid an arm around her and kissed her forehead. The coffee vendor smiled at them, as people always did- to anyone who did not know, they looked like a couple perfectly matched.

* * *

><p>"Dublin Port in five minutes! Dublin Port!" a uniformed crewman shouted through a thick Irish brogue. The travelers on the deck started to move, to make for the exit, when the next shout arrested them all: "<em>Calafort Átha Cliath<em>!"

The reaction was biblical, as if God himself had parted the deck. "_Calafort Átha Cliath_!" The crewman puffed up; he knew what he had done. A woman with a parasol made haste for the stairwell.

"There's no need of that- that kind of _provocation_!" a well-dressed Englishman shouted.

"Provocation? It's a statement of place!" countered an old Irishman. "You're in Ireland now."

"Whether _you_ lot like it or not!" a younger Irishman snarled.

"There is not a person on this boat who doesn't speak English!" said a man with a Manchester accent. "To repeat it in another tongue is redundant for the purpose of _a statement of place_."

"Politics!" The woman- English- next to Edith threw her hands up in despair. "Is nowhere free of it?" She huffed off in the direction of the woman with the parasol.

An enlisted man, who looked to be in his late twenties, ambled up to the evacuated place. "Hello, Sergeant," Edith said, noting his uniform. She wasn't too worried, but it was prudent there was a military man on deck in case of escalation. "On your way home?"

He lit a cigarette and shook his head. "Nope." He wasn't Irish- he sounded like a Yorkshire man. "What brings you to _Calafort Átha Cliath?" _He pronounced it exactly as the crewman had, though he was not Irish. "Dublin Port," he translated for her.

"My sister's getting married in Dublin," Edith told him. "He's Irish."

The soldier let out a hollow laugh. "Well, they're fucked, aren't they?"

* * *

><p>"Ready, Anna?"<p>

"Yes, milady." Anna closed her book. There had been calm waters and both been able to read in relative peace. Now, Anna hinted a smile. "Are _you_ ready, milady?"

"For this?" Mary didn't miss a beat. "_No_." They both laughed. _Thank God for Anna. _"Go and find Edith, will you?"

"Yes, milady." Anna left and Mary was alone. _Good_. She needed a moment to fortify.

Mary gazed out the circular window. Dublin was in clear view now. She smiled to herself. She was here to play matriarch, but some part of her felt as if she really were about to be reunited with her own child- and only when she laid eyes on her and confirmed _she's safe, she's healthy, she's happy_ would she be able to relax. But mostly, Mary was just relieved to have her confidante back, if even for too short a time.

Edith had some stupid notion that as soon as they were away from the house, Mary would want to unburden herself about Sybil and Papa and God knows what else- as if the house and the presence of others were the cause of their non-existent bond. As if Mary would ever talk about her baby sister. There were two people in the world Mary Crawley did not discuss; Sybil was now the second. Papa was too cruel, but she was shocked he could not just dismiss the rumors (on their absurdity alone) about Sybil, that her choice had created so much doubt about her character in his mind. _If he only knew_... But she would not let him spoil Sybil's wedding. She would do whatever it took to make the day wonderful for her. This was in her power to make right.

_But God, a wedding_. There was nothing in the world as unappealing to her at the current moment, in the current situation, as a lot of talk about love and duty, sickness and health, till death do us part. It quickened questions that she could not bear to consider- not now, maybe not ever. _At least Richard isn't here_.

Anna returned with Edith in tow and Mary rose to meet them. "Ready or not..."

* * *

><p>"I see them!"<p>

Sybil raised her hand and waved and Tom recorded the moment, the jubilation mixed with relief on her face- _these weeks have been harder on her than she's let on, and all the time surrounded by people she barely knows- _and no matter how it goes, _this is what it's for_. From the plank, two women waved back. An old dread crept up. "Should I get us a taxi?" A stall tactic, true, but _Jesus_, _Lady Mary in a cab queue_... Best to avoid that. "I'll get us a taxi," he decided. Sybil barely nodded before she ran up to meet her sisters.

"Sybil!" Edith threw her arms around her as Mary did a spot-check. _Safe_. _Healthy_- more color and maybe even a couple extra pounds. The same smile and a new haircut.

"Yes, she's still our Sybil," Mary affirmed. "Mama will be so pleased to hear it."

Sybil pulled away from Edith and touched her hair shyly. "Do you like it?"

"Darling, I love it." Mary kissed her. "It suits you."

"Do you think so?"

"Absolutely I do." Mary was oddly gratified that Sybil still cared so much about her opinion. "But you must ask Anna. She has the final say, you know."

At her name, Anna stepped forward. "You look lovely, milady," she said. "Very modern. And no more tangles!"

"You'd be surprised- some days it's like a nest. You must be glad to be free of the tribulations of my hair. I wish I were!" They laughed and chatted for a bit, before Sybil clapped her hands. "So, welcome to Dublin! Tom is around here somewhere- I recruited him to help with the suitcases and the taxi."

"No bother," Mary interjected. "The porter's taken care of them."

Sybil faltered. "If you prefer. Tom was happy to help." _He took time off work to do it_, she wanted to say but it would have been lost on them. "Anyway, the taxi queue is just over there."

"Darling, we have car. Of course we do. It's all arranged." Mary pointed to the curb. "It's already here. See?"

Sure enough, it was the most ostentatious motor in sight with a chauffeur- an _old _chauffeur- standing in front. _Did Papa arrange that as well_? Sybil couldn't help the snide thought. Tom was waiting for a taxi. She shut her eyes for a second, before she replied, "Great. I'll fetch Tom and we'll meet you at the car."

* * *

><p>"I have the taxi," Tom called to her. "Where are the suitcases? I'll get them."<p>

"Change of plans." Sybil apologized to the cab driver and released him, then took Tom's hand and led him to where her sisters were.

He stopped dead when he saw the car. "A Rolls-Royce? _A silver Rolls-Royce_?" he sputtered. "Is that your father's idea of a joke?"

"I know."

"They can't drive that to St. Michael's!"

"_I know._" She stayed his objection with her tone. "We all have to be a bit flexible this weekend. Now, smile and come say hello."

She kept a hold of his hand as they approached; both sisters put on a smile, but he could tell they were as uncomfortable as he was. He had avoided them at the railway station, so the last time they had all been together was the drawing room and before that, the Swan Inn. On the bright side, he doubted it could be _more_ awkward.

Sybil prodded him, with a squeeze, to speak first. "Lady Mary, Lady Edith. Welcome to Ireland." They both said hello without his name and didn't seem surprised by his appearance. He wondered why he thought they would be- he wasn't surprised by them. Circumstances aside, they had all known each other for five years. He'd taught Lady Edith to drive and he bet he knew more about Lady Mary's love life than most of the family's friends. It occurred to him that household staff were more pretend strangers than actual ones. "How was your journey?"

"Pleasant, thank you," Edith answered.

"The weather seems to have cooperated," Sybil noticed. "It's cloudy, but I think the rain's passed."

"I do hope so." What else was there to say about the weather? They shuffled as all four pondered a variation of _how to start_ and _what to say_. "Anna went to direct the porter," Edith informed them. "Here she comes now."

For Anna, Tom smiled heartily. "Anna! How are you?"

"Mr. Branson." She smiled back at him- small, but sincere _as she is, _Tom noted about his friend. The chauffeur started to load the suitcases; Tom tried not to notice it in his peripheral vision. "So Anna, what's the news from downstairs?"

"Anna, did you pack my sweater?" Sybil cut in rudely and then continued to commandeer Anna's attention until the chauffeur closed the trunk and Lady Mary spoke for the first time in Tom's presence. "Shall we? We're all here."

As Edith and Mary climbed into the car, Sybil turned privately to Tom. "You can't talk to Anna like that."

"Like what? I asked after the people we know." The "_we_" landed harder than he had intended. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"Yes. There is," Sybil refuted firmly. "She's staff. You're not."

"I'm more her than you." His fiancee's brow shot up. "Than them, I mean."

"Not anymore, you're not." Her sisters were now in the car and wondering about the hold up. He was glad Sybil had her back to them. "Anna's working. She can't talk to you like that anymore and you can't ask her to. It isn't fair." She took a breath. "I'm as upset as you about the car. I'll bring it up to them, but not right now. Alright?"

"Alright." She turned back, to where the chauffeur had the door open for _Lady Sybil_, as he called her and she did not correct him. The chauffeur was now waiting with the door open for him. "I'm sorry, but I have to go back to work. I'm on a deadline."

"We can drop you off," Edith offered. "Where are the newspaper offices?"

"North of the river. On the other side from your hotel."

"But closer to there than here," Sybil pointed out. The order was in her words. _Get in_.

He did as she wanted, despite how intolerable it was to let an Irishman open the door for him, _bow and scrape_ to him, as it had once been described, to be driven somewhere and not pay a fare.

Mary, who he knew to be both perceptive and judicious, noticed his distress and chose that moment to extend him an olive branch. "Sybil has sent Mama your articles. You write very well."

She didn't need to include the compliment and he appreciated it. "Thank you. Though I'm sure the subject matter isn't to your taste."

"What are you working on today?" Edith wanted to know.

"Just some local color. The editors have taken it easy on me this week, on account of the wedding." Sybil put her hand on his- her way of making up.

"Local color about what?"

He had tried to be vague, but since Edith had pressed- "The proposed Irish loan program. I've been interviewing people on whether they would contribute."

"Some people are so funny," Sybil chimed in lightly. "One elderly couple told him they plan to put their house on the market!"

Edith's face fell. "That's terrible."

"Why?" Tom could tell the chauffeur was listening.

"Because." Edith looked around for a reprieve and found none. "The British won't pay back those bonds."

"Pardon me, sir," the chauffeur spoke up. Tom did not think the moment he chose was a coincidence and commended him for it. "What's the address?"

"Go to the hotel. I can walk from there. And I'm not a Sir," he couldn't help say. Sybil would be cross that he did- but across from him, Mary looked almost amused.

They were out of the industrial area around the port and into the city proper now and Sybil took the opportunity to comment on its architecture and its charms. "Tom, perhaps you could point out some landmarks?"

"Right. Sure." He wiped his palms on the knees of his trousers. "So, uh, this is the River Liffey, which divides Dublin-"

"We've been here before," Edith cut him off.

"Mary and Edith used to come for balls before the Rising." Sybil was careful to use the local phrase, not the one her parents and their friends used to describe what had happened Easter week in 1916. "Mostly in the countryside, but in Dublin too."

"Are there really still bullet holes in the Post Office?" Edith inquired.

"_Edith_," Sybil hissed with a not-so-subtle glance back at the chauffeur. "Do be sensitive. It's not exactly ancient history."

"It's history nonetheless." Tom came to Edith's aid. He didn't want four days on eggshells. "You like history, don't you?" They had had some interesting discussions about the Boer Wars on the road; she was better versed in them than he was. "I remember you did. And yes, there are."

Edith returned his consideration. "Is Dublin much different than when you left?"

"It doesn't look much different," he replied diplomatically.

"It's different than I remember," Mary observed.

"How so?"

She nodded out the window and remarked gamely, "That, for one."

It was the tricolor flag.


	66. Chapter 66: The Arrival- The Bransons

__A/N: So sorry! The whole last third got cut off when this originally posted. thanks to sakurasencha for the heads up. __

__a bit of a structural experiment here focusing on each family. let's see how it works!__

_as always thanks for the kind reviews! and thanks to Irish Chauffeur for the railway correction!_

* * *

><p>It has been written that all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Perhaps they were not unhappy, as such, but the inescapable truth was that the Crawleys and the Bransons had convened in Dublin on the third weekend of June in the year 1919, to become a<em> family.<em>

As improbable as that was to all parties involved, none of them dwelled on it; now that the wedding weekend had arrived, they all adopted a variation of the attitude that _what's done is done _and_ they're going to marry whether we like or not so we may as well like it as best we can _and besides, there was the business of the nuptials to attend to. It was remarkable- equally improbable- that the daughters of the Earl of Grantham and Mór Branson and her youngest son would think alike about _anything_ and though they did not discuss it, it was at the forefront of all their minds from Thursday when the Crawley girls landed at Calafort Átha Cliath.

Oddly, the two people who had the most difficulty- at least at first- with this unification were Tom and Sybil, but that was because they had underestimated just how much the people they loved loved them.

* * *

><p><strong>Thursday, June 19<strong>

Even on this fashionable street, the car was noticed. As was he, when he stepped through the door the chauffeur held open, standing asea in a cheap suit in front of a hotel that would refuse him entrance. He didn't know which made him more uncomfortable: the stares of the rich patrons or the Irish staff who served them. Even Anna was strange and out of context.

Her sisters went in, but Sybil stayed behind on the sidewalk and took his hands in hers for a quiet moment, thinking that her father would never accept such affection from a woman in public, in front of other men, but Tom wouldn't ever be embarrassed by that; his eyes swept the passers-by now for another reason. Tom was a man of much emotion and it should not have surprised her that he was roiling now. But she knew that when he was like this, she was best- for him, for them- as a counter-weight, his port in the storm. She put on an efficient smile, tugged his shirt-cuffs playfully with her thumbs. "The thing of it is," she began, taking a lighthearted tack, "you won't ever get them to match _perfectly_."

"Sound advice," he replied wanly. A concierge overseeing the girls' luggage cast a glare of suspicion at them.

"I'll talk to Mary," she said, discarding the smile. "But Tom- in the end, it's only a car." _But it isn't. _She knew it too. "I love you with my whole heart," she impressed softly. "I don't know what else I can say but that."

Her plaintiveness could always undo him; now, it made him feel worse. "I'll do better," he vowed and hoped he could keep the promise.

* * *

><p>Tom walked briskly back to the newspaper office. As recently as Tuesday, he had traversed these streets with the surety of a philosopher-king: he was a journalist at an important publication who reported on important matters like politics and peace treaties and Presidents and Prime Ministers. The barrier to entry was high- the <em>Irish Daily<em> didn't let just anyone write the news- but he'd cleared it _and_ been promoted. He had won the woman he loved and was about to marry her and move into the nicest home in which he had ever lived. _This time next week _he would have his darling wife and a respectable Dublin address, be a fully-realized citizen of this ideal city-state. And he carried with him Sybil's breath in his ear, the feeling of her strong hand lacing with his last night and the way she had looked at him in the first light of the morning. He was a man who had it all.

The arrival of the Crawleys in Dublin- in a telegram that afternoon, now in person- had swiftly dispatched such delusions.

Tom walked briskly under the leaden sky, tried to bury the echo of Lord Grantham's Faustian offer with each footfall: _"_You must have doubts... ___" _

That gray afternoon at the Grantham Arms, he had won. In the circumscribed space of that ten-by-twelve room righteousness was enough, but the real field of play was so much wider than that. If His Lordship couldn't harvest doubt, he would sow it. The hotel of choice of the Realm, so Tom would know his trespass. The most expensive car on the market, so everyone else would know it too. It was how Robert Crawley branded him a thief, someone who had broken into their world and taken what was not his to want.

* * *

><p>Tom re-entered the frenetic newsroom to the usual fanfare: "Oi, Branson! Nice of you to show up, at half-five!"<p>

"Someone has to do the work around here," he returned in similar jocular spirit, with a nod at the window where four of his grizzled fellow journos were perched. "Nice to see you loafers where I left you."

There was a chorus of _ho-ho-ho_, _listen to the up-and-comer_ as the deputy editor rolled off the ledge and followed Tom to his desk, propping a corner of his substantial arse next to Tom's typewriter. "Bet the office isn't so bad compared to your in-laws, eh Branson?"

Tom flinched. News reporters were all addressed only by their surnames- a mark of honor really, as only the Arts ponces and ad salesmen insisted on _Mister-_ but at this particular moment, it stung. "Your girl's family get in all right?"

"Fine, thanks." The deputy editor- Callahan- handed over edits to Tom's article, which should have been the end of the interaction. Callahan remained though as Tom reviewed the notes, spinning a pencil like a top with jaundiced fingers, stained with tobacco and ink. Tom had held a much dirtier job, but his hands never looked like that. He looked up from the paper, irritated by the distraction. "That all?"

Callahan dropped the pencil back in its cup. "De Valera's due to arrive in New York on Sunday. The reaction in America- it's big, Branson." _No shyte_, Tom thought. "The venues! Madison Square Garden. Fenway Park in Boston- _sixty_ _thousand_ it seats!"

"You don't say." Tom crossed his arms. He had argued as much in the editorial meeting last week, but had been shouted down by Callahan who had derided the American tour as "_the usual Shinner stunt- all show and no boat._" It was a rare thing to hear the "Shinner" epithet roll off a Dublin tongue.

"The timing's quite brilliant actually," his boss continued. "It ought to make for some uncomfortable breakfasts at Versailles- Wilson and Lloyd George sharing croissants with de Valera doing his Sermon on the Mount on the front page of _The New York Times._"

"Sermon on the Mount?"

Callahan grinned. "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. If that doesn't describe 1916..."

"Very elevated rhetoric. Perhaps _you_ ought to start writing speeches for them Shinners."

Callahan's smile tightened- it killed him to take such cheek from a cocky kid but he did now for the sake of the story. "Say, your wife has people in America, doesn't she?"

"She's not my wife until Saturday." The misstatement of personal details was a common power play in newsroom. Tom thought it was stupid. "But yes. She does."

"Any of her people in New York?"

"Her grandmother. An uncle as well, I think."

"Telegram them! And write it up- real Americans react to an historic visit."

"Telegram them?" Tom repeated. "I don't even know them."

"So what? You're the prodigal new son-in-law, aren't you?"

For the second time, Tom flinched; he reached into his drawer for sheet of new paper, setting it meticulously on the platen as he uttered a muffled, "Not exactly."

* * *

><p>In a stout house north of the river, Liam Branson sat contentedly in the parlor with his mother waiting for Aileen to model her Communion-cum-bride's deputy dress. It was shaping up to be a brilliant weekend. Tonight, he would see Clare; tomorrow was Friday, the end of the work week and a bachelor's send-off for Tom; and Saturday was the wedding. He didn't know how Sybil's people did weddings- <em>but<em> _here, we do them right_. Singing and dancing, speeches and toasts, revelry and ribaldry from sundown Friday until the wee hours of Sunday, when Tom would be exhorted by everyone within a mile to _Go on lad_ and carry his new bride home. _Yes, a brilliant weekend indeed._

Aileen hopped down the stairs in pilled stockings and a white frock with a new blue sash. "Don't I look so fine?" she prompted as she twirled, to which Liam applauded and Mrs. Branson clucked about adjustments.

"Stand still," she ordered.

Liam admired her ribbon. "Blue, to bring out the red in my hair," Aileen informed him importantly, swinging her arms before her uncle as Mrs. Branson measured her hem. "And your Clare, what of her?"

"What about her?"

"Does she have a dress?"

"I assume she does. I haven't asked."

"You must! And tell her she can't wear white. Only Sybil can wear white on Saturday." He did not point out her own color. "It's the rule."

"A good deputy has to enforce the rules," he conceded. "I'll pass it on to Clare."

Aileen's freckled face dimpled. "She'll be wanting to marry you after this!" The emphatic shake of Liam's head only spurred her on. "She will so! When she sees Sybil all in white and Uncle Tom declarin' his love for her at the altar!"

His mother's amused face shot out from around Aileen's waist. "Lo, did you hear that? From the mouth of babes!"

Mrs. Branson released Aileen, who went to her uncle's lap. "What do I need a wife for? I've already got a girl I'm devoted to." He dropped a kiss on her head.

"Don't mess my bun," the child returned as she patted her hair.

"I can recall another Branson," his mother interjected, "who sat in that very chair and told me, '_Oh no, Ma- I'm not looking to get married_.' He wanted to travel, he said. Have adventures, he said. A wife would only slow him up." She could see Tom now as he had been that day- blonder from both summer and youth, excited about his prospects in England and all the places he'd go afterward; that day when she had tried to hide her loss and be happy for him. "You ask your brother what happened to all of _that_." She had Tom back now, thanks to Sybil.

"Ma, if Tom had listened to you at 22, he'd be married to Katy Connelly," Liam reminded her. "For your sake, I _won't_ ask."

Aileen's ears perked. "Miss Connelly? Did Uncle Tom go with her?"

"It was before Sybil." Liam didn't want her to repeat it and make trouble.

"When?" Aileen demanded.

"Before you were born and never you mind! Gossip is the devil's work," Mrs. Branson reproached her. "Go up and take off your dress. Lay it nicely on the bed."

Aileen scampered off and left mother and son to muse on family history, ancient and recent. "It _was_ before she was born. Jesus, time's past_._"

Mrs. Branson nodded with the sagacity of her age. "So it has. You were still in your school cap. Of course, if you were a boy then," she proposed, "it must mean you're a man now."

Liam rolled his eyes- Ma never got after Tom like this, but their relationship was different and he didn't mind so much. "Is marriage the only mark of a man?"

"No, but it is the best one," his mother retorted. "At least in my book."

"I like Clare a lot, but it's only been a few months."

"I know," she relented. "Will you be seeing her tonight?"

Liam checked his watch. "Yes, and I'll be late if I don't leave now. We're meeting Tom for dinner and Sybil later for dancing."

"The pairs of you are thick as thieves these days. This is the third time you four have been out in a fortnight," Mrs. Branson noted. "Do she and Clare get on?"

"Very well, in fact. Clare's not political, so she doesn't care that she's English. The English who stay at her boarding-house '_mind their manners and tip accordingly,'_" he recited her praise of Sybil's countrymen. "And Sybil likes clothes, so they have that in common."

Mrs. Branson grimaced- oh, she'd seen the stream of shopping boxes and her cast-offs heaped in the trash. "Lady Sybil's the first person on God's earth to buy a new wardrobe to be poor."

"Clare's promised to show her all the sales," Liam told her. His mother did not appear placated by the news.

"Don't be out too late," she said when he rose to leave. "Six o'clock Mass tomorrow."

"Aw, Mam-"

"Don't '_Mam_' me. It's Tom's confessional before his wedding. We will be there as a family. We did it for Frank, we'll do it for Tom, and we'll do it for you when it's your turn. Sybil will be there as well."

"At Mass?" Liam was surprised. "Why?"

"Because we will be there as a family to support Tom and she'd like to be there as well. She asked me yesterday if she could come," Mrs. Branson said with a hint of a smile. "I thought it very gracious of her to ask."

"You've gone soft on her, Ma."

_Soft_ was the wrong word, but she had lived with Sybil these last six weeks, in close quarters, and that had created a familiarity at least, and what is known is always less fearsome than what is not. She had been hard on Sybil, but Sybil had stuck it out and Mrs. Branson respected her for it. "I'm not the only one."

"Yeah." He smiled to himself. Under penalty of death, he could not tell his mother about that drunken night in the flat when her hair was still long- how much it had moved him to see his brother take it down so carefully and sweetly, the loving looks that had passed between them on the bed. "Sybil's alright." He looked to the stairs, the site of several heated exchanges and where he had issued that first terrible verdict on her. _I should apologize for that_. "Can you believe us, Ma? Folded like a house of cards, we did. No wonder Ireland's been conquered so long."

"I'm only his mother," Mrs. Branson said. "My job is to send him into the care of another woman, not to choose her. That's as it ought to be. It's what God intended."

Liam burst out laughing. "So now God intended your boy to marry an English princess?"

"He had his own Son born in a stable," his mother sighed. "Stranger things have happened."

* * *

><p>Inside a smoky cafe popular with the Sinn Fein crowd, Liam observed his companions as the bartender fixed his drink. There was Clare, a standout in a roomful of dark suits and moss-colored military serge in a one-shouldered orange organza dress for dancing, as she parried the attention of four men (all but one of whom worked in his office) with skill, an elbow propped on a billiards cue. He caught her eye and smiled and she smiled back, her blonde head turning in time with the notes the gramaphone was humming out in the corner.<p>

His attention turned to Tom, slouched with a beer in a wooden chair with an idle eye on a backgammon game. Tom had been subdued at supper as well and Liam surmised something had happened with Sybil's sisters.

He paid for his ale and went to join Tom, pulling a chair around beside him. "What's on your mind, brother?" Tom stayed quiet and continued to watch the board. Liam settled in and watched as well. He could wait.

The game ended, the loser relinquished his seat, and a new game began before Tom spoke. "I think I'm not ashamed of what I am," he said, "but then, why do I feel as I do sometimes?"

That was deeper than Liam expected. "And how's that?"

_Well_. He didn't know if his self-respect would allow him admit it out loud. _When I said I would welcome her family with open arms..._ That promise had been predicated on the assumption- naive, in retrospect- that the Crawleys would come around to accept _them_, not merely the finality of her decision- her decision, as they saw it, to throw her life away on him. "Bad," was all he said.

Liam frowned. "Not Sybil?"

"No, not Sybil." _Never Sybil_.

"Her sisters then? Were they rude to you?"

Lady Mary and Edith had been stiff and uncomfortable, but so had he. They'd each asked him questions, with the air of indulgence that adults showed to children, but they had made the effort. "No. I can't say that they were."

Liam shifted in his seat to face Tom. "So what then?"

It occurred to him, as he considered how to articulate all that was churning in his mind and his heart, that it had been a long time since he'd had a friend. It had been a lonely life at Downton. Yes, he could talk to Sybil, but not about everything. Not about her father. And there was no one in the world who understood where he was coming from so well as his brother. "I don't need their money or fancy things. But to love someone so much, as much as I love her- I'd do anything for her, I'd lay down my life in a minute- but I have no merit to them." He had been so proud when Lord Grantham had shaken his hand in the churchyard. "It's very painful."

"Aye, I'm sure." Especially so for Tom, the most decent man he knew since he was a little boy helping home a father that Liam could barely remember.

"I suppose I only realized today that every time I walk into their world, that's who I'll be- that's _all_ I be. The man she threw her life away for." He stared into his drink and confessed, "I wish I could say I don't care, but I do. I care that they see me as an unfit husband." _Carson_. "Or a man who would do her harm." _Her father_.

"Oh, come now- harm? I'm sure they don't think _that_, Tom."

"It's true. Otherwise her father wouldn't have tried to pay me to leave her."

"_What_?"

"It's true." Tom apprised him briefly of the afternoon at the Grantham Arms. "He thinks I'd let her starve or live on the street. As if I wouldn't have walked away on my own, if that were the case." _Monopoly of honor indeed_. "Sybil doesn't know about that, by the way, and she doesn't need to."

"That's pretty despicable of her father, to go behind his own daughter's back. But do you want my advice?"

"Go on."

Liam sipped his drink. "Get over it."

"Get over it?"

"Get over it," Liam said again with the same good-nature. "You got the girl, Tommy, and she doesn't have any doubts. And on Saturday, you get to marry her and you have the rest of forever to show them what Sybil already knows: that you and she were meant to be." Liam put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You know that, don't you?"

Tom did and his voice was thick as he answered, "I do." He swallowed his emotion, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't expect to be so knocked back by their arrival. It's just a shock, I suppose, to see her with them. I never really have before." To his brother's skeptical face, he explained, "It was a secret relationship, Liam- that was sort of the point. We were never around anyone else and I never went into the house."

"You've never seen her with them, but equally they've never seen her with _you_. Give them the benefit of the doubt- they've given you one by coming, haven't they? So prove their faith." Liam smiled. "I believe you once told me that courtships aren't just for the girl. You have to woo the family too."

"You want me to woo Lady Mary and Lady Edith?" Having never met them, Liam could not fully appreciate just how funny that was.

"Sure," he insisted. "It is a known fact that when the Branson boys turn on the charm, they're impossible not to like."

"Oh, is that a _known_ fact?" Tom bantered back.

"Ask your Princess," Liam grinned.

Tom nodded toward Clare at the bagatelle table. "Or that one." He glanced over at his smitten brother. "God knows what that pair of remarkable girls see in us, but it does seem to prove your point."

"So take your head out of your arse and turn on the charm," Liam said taking a swig of beer. "You can thank me later."

They watched another round of backgammon in companionable quiet, with only the odd remark until Tom said, "Hey, Liam?"

"Yes, Tom?"

"You busy this Saturday?"

"Saturday?" Liam pretended. "Not sure. I'll check my diary."

"Because if you aren't busy, perhaps you'd want to stand up with me."

Liam had not presumed he would be asked and it meant all the more because Tom and Sybil's wedding, while it would be a modest affair, was also entirely their own creation and they had taken great care with every detail. "It would be an honor," he accepted with a humbled handshake. "It's gonna be a great day, Tommy. We'll see to that."

Clare came over and they relayed the good news to her, one arm slung around Liam who held her hand over his shoulder. She assumed his seat when Liam went to buy a celebratory round. "You boys looked very serious over here earlier. Was it about politics?"

Tom shook his head. "Love."

"_Oh_. So what'd Liam talk about then?" Clare quipped with a laugh- she had a lovely laugh and deployed it often- and Tom joined her. Clare was a Dublin girl through-and-through and she was tough. _Liam needs someone like that to rein him in_. He never considered himself as tamed by love, but that's obviously not how Liam had seen him that surreal afternoon when his brother had shown up at Downton. He wondered what Liam would say now. _How much can change from one spring to the next_.

"That brother of mine," Tom mused. "He's stupid, but wise."

Clare smiled privately. "I know."

The expression on her face was such that Tom almost asked if she was in love with his brother, but they were not that well-acquainted. "How long's it been for you two?"

She turned her pretty head to him. "Three months to the day, as a matter of fact!"

"Ah." _Three months- ha_. Tom had to check himself. "It's early yet for you two."

Clare shrugged. "I don't know about that- my parents met and were married in the same summer."

"The same summer I met Sybil, she was whisked off to London to meet society's eligible young men."

"She must have hated that!" _Astute observation_, Tom thought- and Clare had only met Sybil thrice. "She hates when other men approach us at dancing- shuts them down straightaway," Clare told him. "I confess, I like a bit of a harmless flirt, but Sybil's just not that sort." She looked sidelong at him. "There's more than a few men who'd love to know your secret."

Tom had to laugh- _what Lord Grantham and a couple Dublin arses have in common_. But he reflected on the private life they once had led, their sacred sanctuary, protected from the aspersions of others. Those innocent days when he would wait up to fetch her when her shift ended at midnight- or sooner, if she had told him, "_come by early if you like, Dr. Clarkson will have gone home, it'll be just me and the orderly._"

He'd tap on the back door window, watched for her to reveal herself around the corner at the end of the hall. She'd unlock the door and he'd be able to deduce from the state of her up-do what kind of day it had been. His own hair was combed, jaw shaven and smoothed with talcum. "_You smell better than I do_," she'd once remarked, swinging the charge over her shoulder with a smile.

He'd follow her down the dormant hallway, to the ward where the patients slept and they would sit at the night-desk and play hangman under the banker's lamp on the back of old inventory sheets. They make each other giggle, drawing macabre expressions on the condemned stick-men and he would ache to kiss her. That officer who was keen used to call for her every five minutes whenever he came- and she'd roll her eyes, lean close to his ear and say in a low voice as she slid off the stool: "_I'll be right back._ _Don't cheat._" She _was_ in love him, he was sure of it. She would always hurry back. "_Now, where were we..."_

"The secret," Tom replied, warmed by remembrance, "was time."

Liam returned and distributed three freshly-poured stouts, which they all raised. "To my brother Tom-my best man, always."

"That was so dear, I feel like you two should kiss!" Clare joked.

"I don't think Sybil would much like that," Liam laughed. Out the window, he could see a figure coming at pace towards the cafe in a peacock-blue coat. "Don't look now Tommy, but I think that's your missus."


	67. Chapter 67: The Arrival- The Crawleys

__A/N: You may want to check with the last chapter- posting issues. __

__The girls get their turn. Longer note in comments.__

__FYI, Bates' arrest does not exist in this AU.__

_thanks so much as always for the reviews!_

* * *

><p><strong>Thursday, June 19 1919<strong>

The ferry had arrived late in the afternoon and by the time they had settled into the hotel, it was time to start dressing for dinner, a ritual that was at once familiar and entirely foreign.

They readied in Mary's room, the three of them and Anna, as they had for more than ten years, since Sybil had first been forced into a corset, until last month. But this night, it was in a double suite in Dublin, not Downton, and they no longer called the same place home. Nevertheless, they all resumed their old places in the mise-en-scene: Sybil on the bed, Mary at the vanity, and Edith somewhere in between as Anna worked deftly between them. Anna had only two- not three- charges now, but the conversation between the three of them hadn't changed.

'Three of them' now meant her sisters and Anna, who had apparently stepped into Sybil's role of the straight-man to the sharper-tongued Crawley sisters in the nightly performance, but Sybil showed she still possessed a singular talent for improvisational scandal when she dropped the front of her dress, to change into one Anna had packed, and revealed her bargain-basement brassiere and unfettered body.

"Oh _darling_!" Mary cried in horror.

"The same old Sybil," Edith said with a mirthful shake of her head. "Always a controversy! And maybe a few more trips to that chip shop you wrote about?" she added pointedly. She had the best figure of the three and, as it was her one physical superiority, she never missed the chance to reference it.

Sybil ignored the slight and crossed the room, half-naked but not ashamed (why should she be? She wore nothing all the time now in front of Tom) and hung up her day dress in the armoire. "I don't know why you're surprised. Anna's not." Anna smiled at her over Mary's head. "She knows how much I hated wearing them, so now I don't!"

Edith put a hand on her hip. "Sybil, you look like one of the soldiers' dirty postcards."

_How juvenile, _Sybil thought, invoking injured soldiers in an appeal to vanity and then the scolding attitude about sex _when she doesn't know a thing about it_. At the hospital, nurses were supposed to throw out those cards if they found them in the soldiers' clothes, but she never did because who was she to judge? "Don't worry, I'm sure brassieres are just another silly passing fad," she said blithely and then with a bite, "Like women voting. You _do_ know American women got the right to vote this month?"

"They don't have it yet," Edith returned. "The states still have to ratify it."

"Six have already done and it's only been two weeks." Sybil shot a grin at Anna. "Not that Anna and I expect you to admit how wrong and short-sighted you were."

Mary turned in her chair. "Better be careful, Edith- it sounds like Sybil's been practicing a bit of Irish bare-knuckle!"

"I mean you too," Sybil told her. Mary let out a high laugh. "Oh please! Do you even know what semolina _is_?"

"See what I mean?" Mary was amused by Sybil's restored feistiness- and not afraid of a little friendly fire. "Men don't wear brassieres either, darling. I suppose for you it's only a matter of time!"

* * *

><p>As none of them were ready to to talk about <em>how it would be<em> with the Bransons this weekend and after Sybil became one of them, the conversation turned back to England as Edith apprised Sybil of the imminent nuptials of her friends Annie and Imogen, whom Mary knew had not been Sybil's friends for some time.

"Annie wants to honeymoon in Scandinavia," Edith relayed. "Unusual, but she's always been a bit of a tomboy. Imogen, of course, wants the South of France..."

Mary could see in the mirror that Sybil had stopped listening. She watched her as Edith prattled on, watched her attention drift to the window, out to places Mary couldn't see and probably didn't even know existed. _It's Sybil_ but different. Today, Sybil had looked upon the hotel's marble and gold-leafed ostentation as if she had never seen its like before, shaking her head in an _if you only knew_ way. Mary did want to know- because it was Sybil- but she didn't, for fear their past would prove too short a bridge in the present, and to the future.

Sybil surveyed the room's extravagances- the crystal bowls, the burnished bronze fixtures, the French Empire bed she was seated on- nothing she had missed, although the bed was divine _and probably silent as well__._

She had spent a lot of time recently in rooms that were not her own. _We have been married quite a lot this year, _she thought. The busted wedding at the inn near to Scotland, the would-be wedding night at the cottage with the water stain on the wall. She smiled to remember the frozen winter witching hour when he had promised he would give her better and he had. _Oh, how he had.._. And she promised she would marry him. _That was six months ago. What will the world look like six months from Saturday_?

Perhaps that's why it all felt- not anticlimactic, but nice and calm. Like the sun on her face when the ferry had pulled into port, a destination reached at the appointed time, after the most romantic hotel room in England. In some books- say, the Bible- she had married Tom again just before dawn today... Tonight would be the last sleep on those awful wooden slats, _thank God_. Tomorrow, she would stay here with her sisters, spend her last nomadic night in a proper, luxurious bed. _Some night, just once, _she and Tom ought to marry each other in a bed like this. _It would be glorious._

"Sybil!" Edith had been calling her. "I _asked_," she repeated, "where do _you_ plan to honeymoon?" Then, in an effort to be sensitive, "I assume it will be someplace in Ireland, since you've only just arrived."

Sybil made a brief and futile attempt to explain the concept of earned holiday and how Tom had not yet earned any, before she concluded, "It doesn't matter, I'm more than happy to spend our first night in our new flat. If you lived with your mother-in-law, you would be too."

"Is Mrs. Branson any better to you?"

"Is Granny any better to Mama?" The comparison was both funny and apt. "It is a historically difficult relationship."

"That's true," Mary agreed. "Isobel would have much preferred you to me." Sybil looked up. _Isobel_? "Richard's mother is deceased," Mary covered quickly. "So Isobel was my one brush with a mother-in-law, a hundred years ago when Matthew and I... well, no matter now."

It _did_ matter, that was obvious to all of them, but only Sybil could probe. "Isobel writes that Matthew is well," she ventured.

"Then I suppose he must be," Mary merely said.

Sybil deferred and turned the subject back. "I'll never be what Tom's mother wants for him, but what can I do? That's her problem, not mine."

Mary heard the unspoken rejoinder to _his_ family and _their_ _problem_. "We were we nice to him today, were we not?"

"Nice enough." It was as generous as she could be; they hadn't been cold, but they were decidedly cool and Sybil was irked that both had made Tom address them by title, like Anna.

"Nice enough is still nice, Sybil."

Sybil had no intention of crediting her sisters for not being horrible. "I don't want you to _tolerate_ him. He's my husband_"- _her tense did not escape Mary's notice - "and your brother of sorts!"

Edith nearly spit. "Branson, our _brother?" _

"_Yes_," Sybil spoke her wish. "And his name is Tom. You know that because that's what I call him in my letters."

Edith wanted to argue back- Sybil could be as spoiled as Mary at times s_he'll accept no less than family status for Branson? She's lucky Papa didn't have him arrested or shot what with the rumors_- but Mary intervened. "Of course, darling. _Tom_." Mary knew Edith would follow her lead on Sybil and Branson and Dublin and she did, turning her attention to a pictorial about the construction of the Eiffel Tower. "Is it short for Thomas?"

"It is, but no one ever calls him that," Sybil answered, appeased by her interest. "His family call him Tommy, but I never do and his byline is just Tom."

"Yes, we know."

Sybil perked up. "Did you really read his articles?" She was so hopeful that Mary couldn't bear to tell her the truth.

Fortunately, Edith spoke up. "I read them. He does write well."

"I hear he writes well." Mary offered an apologetic smile. "I did skim one or two."

"All the same, thank you for saying so to him." Tom had been so humbled by that. He only wanted the family to know he's doing right by her- making something of himself, meeting his responsibilities- in contravention of their father's prejudice. Did her sisters know the power they had, how much even a meager acknowledgement meant? "He so wants your good opinion," she impressed. "He knows he must earn it and he means to. But I don't want him on a fool's errand."

Mary exchanged a look with Edith. "If he's good to you, he'll be fine with us."

"Would that that were true..." Sybil trailed off, shaking her head. _If they only knew_.

* * *

><p>At some point Anna, having sensed that Mary wanted to speak privately with Sybil, maneuvered Edith back to her room to fix her hair.<p>

Anna was as close to a fourth Crawley sister as there would ever be and the most astute observer of the girls, their relationships with each other, and their respective places in the house. Of late, Anna had observed the improvement of Lady Edith's position in the family- by default, but nevertheless- as suddenly, it was her their father shared the newspaper with at breakfast and her their mother visited with in the afternoon. Of course, His Lordship was only determined to show that _he_ couldn't care less that Lady Sybil had left and Her Ladyship was desperate for details in Lady Sybil's letters to her sisters. But the fact remained that Lady Edith had received more attention from her parents in the past six weeks than at any other time in her life.

So while Anna was sure Lady Edith missed her sister, she was (aside from Mr. Branson) the person who had benefited the most from her departure. And while Lady Edith had her own issues with His Lordship's rule of the house, Anna suspected that at this particular moment, she was inclined to return his favor with her own.

Anna and Edith weren't conversationalists, but occasionally Edith would solicit her as she did now. "Was it odd for you, to see Branson again?"

"Not very," Anna replied. "I'd seen him out of livery before- on Sundays and Christmas."

"Was it odd to see him with Sybil?"

_No, not really_ but then she looked so different now. But Anna refused to comment on Lady Sybil or her love affair. "Not as much as for you and Lady Mary, I'm sure."

"I've seen them before," Edith told her without elaboration.

So had Anna, but she kept that to herself. "His job sounds interesting. Must be exciting to be a reporter." In the mirror, Lady Edith's eyebrow shot up. "Don't worry, milady," Anna assured her. "I'm very happy in service."

Edith was quiet until Anna finished her hair. "If Bates were Lord Bates or Viscount Bates, would you still love him? That is to say, could you marry him?" she clarified. "And sit at our table and be one of us?"

Anna stopped collecting spare pins and considered the twist on the question: _am I as brave as Mr. Branson_? She liked the Crawleys and loved Lady Mary_,_ but they were her employers. If the third child had been a son and she had fallen in love with him- would the family treat her as they now treated Mr. Branson? As an intruder- even Lady Mary, _even after all we've been though_?

"I think..." Anna never started sentences to them that way, "that it would be terribly hard to be in a place where I knew I wasn't wanted and everyone believed I wasn't fit to be."

* * *

><p>Mary sat beside Sybil on the bed and tried to think how to start. She regarded her little sister for a moment, then reached to tuck back a lock of cropped hair. <em>Always a controversy indeed<em>. "Do you know what Mama said when she saw the photograph you sent? She said, 'With that smile, she can wear her hair any way she likes.' She's right, you know."

Sybil could hear her mother's cadence- and her longing. She felt it too. It was an open secret that Sybil was their mother's favorite, forged by a special connection, for reasons never satisfactorily explained to her, from the day she was born. "How is Mama?"

"As you'd expect. Bereft without her baby." Mary's tone teased but there was truth behind it and Sybil felt her resentment toward her father start to rise; their mother did not deserve this. "She did so want to be here."

"I do so wish she could be," Sybil replied, an admission that their father's retribution was not as impotent as she'd like them to think. "But I don't fault her. She should stand with her husband."

That surprised Mary. "Would _you_?"

"I _am,_" Sybil stated with resolution then pondered, "If the shoe were on the other foot?" She almost laughed. "I couldn't say. It's not as if Tom would ever be in Papa's place."

"Mama wrote you a letter." Mary retrieved a thick cream envelope and handed it to her sister.

"Goodness!" Sybil exclaimed at its weight. "How many pages are in here?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Her American pith."

Sybil smiled to herself as she turned it over in her hands. "I can't tease about that anymore. Tom is quite the talker. Emotional too."

As Sybil's letters home were carefully drawn for her audience with Tom as a minor character, easing him into the fold, that was the most personal insight Mary had ever received on him. It dawned on her that 'emotional talker' _is likely the _least_ I'll come to know about him_. "We have a new chauffeur," Mary informed Sybil. "He never says a word and seems very dull-witted. Old and ugly too."

Mary expected it would thrill Sybil to learn that her father was in fact _quite_ aware of Tom's many virtues and it did. "I'll take full blame for that," she boasted. "Though if Papa truly wanted to ease his mind, he should have hired a woman." The tatty comment escaped before it struck her _if that's how controlling Papa is about the driver_... "Has it been very hard at home?"

_Yes_, but... "We'll survive," Mary sighed. "We Crawleys always do."

"The season can't have been easy for you and Edith, with your sister disowned."

"You _are not_ disowned." Disowned women did not come back; Sybil said it so easily. "If Granny heard you...!"

Sybil laughed. "Oh, Granny. Do you know she sent us a wedding present?"

"I didn't, but I'm not surprised. You know how wily Granny can be."

"Oh, I'm sure Papa doesn't know. Mary, it's a-" Sybil dropped her voice- "a _bedroom set_!" Mary's eyes flew wide. "Tom nearly died!" Sybil went on. "I've never seen him so red as when the craftsman was telling him the dimensions Her Ladyship had estimated for the bed!"

They laughed and Mary decided it was as opportune an opening as any. "Sybil, darling- Mama asked me to talk to you."

"About what?" Mary stayed silent and awaited comprehension. "_Oh._" Mary confirmed it with a martyr's smile. "You don't have to do that," Sybil said quickly.

"I said that I would."

"It's really not necessary-"

"I promised, so I-"

"You don't." A firm and final answer. "It's not necessary, Mary." Now, Sybil waited.

"_Oh._" Mary looked down, as if she'd just stumbled into their intimacy and Sybil was embarrassed because her sister was. "I see."

In truth, Mary was not shocked. Sybil's letters of late had taken on a strange, poetic quality; she was notoriously the family's worst correspondent, her letters read like calendar entries- _Today, I... _and_ Tomorrow, we...- _something must have changed to move to her write about _a place Picasso could have painted_.

_Something_, indeed.

The two now shared something, though Sybil didn't know it; and it was Mary's knowledge, warped by betrayal, that brought her hand on top of Sybil's and compelled her to ask though not for the reason Sybil presumed, "Was he very nice to you?"

"Of course he was! How could you ask that? " Sybil's rebuke was soft and wounded, until she saw that Mary was fighting tears. "He was very nice to me," she affirmed, not sure why Mary should cry about it. "It was all very nice."

"In Liverpool?"

Sybil nodded. "How did you-?"

"Your letter. '_A brilliant red-streaked lavender sky..._'"

"Oh, God-" _now_ she blushed- "did I really write that?"

"You really did."

"Crikey." Their laughter chased away the awkwardness, and then Sybil said seriously, "It was entirely my choice, Mary. Tom didn't pressure me at all, _he_ wanted to wait- but I didn't. It was time and I was ready."

Mary looked at her sister, whom she had known for her whole life: from Mama's arms, behind the bars of the crib, barely able to see over the bed, across the pillow from her. So proud on her pony, then exhilarated on her horse. Inconsolable when their sex had claimed her on the bathroom floor and when she feared the first season would steal her sister forever. Unsure in the awkward years. Determined at the dinner table, so heartbroken at the inn, heartbroken in different way at the hospital. Lonely- but never alone- in these last years of absent friends and unrequited love.

Mary had been so afraid that this damn world would get Sybil too... _Had it changed fast enough for her, or was she simply brave enough not to care_?

Sybil bit her lip bashfully- Mary was still staring- but her voice was full and confident, and she sounded so very grown-up as she imparted, "It really is so wonderful, Mary." An unsaid "_You'll see_" hung in the air like the tone of a bell after its rung. _How hopeful she is._

Mary smiled and swallowed her secret and- somehow- she felt lighter, as if a tiny bit of her burden had been lifted.

It would never be _alright_- what had happened, what had been lost that night and because of that night... but someone had protected and cared for her sister, as no one had for her- _if someone had, it might all be so different_- had seen her safely to other side and that was a kind of closure, perhaps the most Mary Crawley would ever have.

And in a roundabout way, she supposed she had the chauffeur to thank for it.


	68. Chapter 68: A New World: Part I

_ sorry for the delay- summer travels. thanks so much as always for the reviews!_

_A/N in comments._

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><p><strong>Thursday, June 19 1919<strong>

The white day had given way to a dark blue night when Sybil emerged from the hotel and the clouds ran fast overhead. She stopped for a moment in the center of the sidewalk, tilted her head back, watched them chase each other in front of the moon, and recalled all the nights she had put her head on her arms on the window sill in her bedroom and sighed.

How wide and wonderful the world was now.

"Oh- pardon me!" A man bumped her shoulder as he passed- her fault really, as she was blocking the path- and lifted his hat in apology. But his perfunctory tune changed when he caught sight of her face- "_Well_, _hello_"- apparently calculating that she was the right age, the right sort, and it was the right time of night for him to take an interest.

He spun on his heels, started to walk backwards in front of her and she did not slow her pace one bit to aid him, though the rangy smile that spread over his face led her to believe he liked the challenge. "Can I make it up to you?" _The young men here! _So forward. At the dance hall too. "I know a cafe around the corner."

She shook her head, but smiled because Clare had judged her to be _absolutely brutal_ in her rejections _the poor boys,_ but she'd argued that they had made advances with Tom's hat on the table and his ring on her finger (she would never go into mixed company without it) and _what sort of man does _that? But this poor boy knew nothing but her gloved hand. What did he imagine her to be, she wondered. _I could be anyone_, she supposed, an emancipation that had taken her twenty-one years to win. "No, thank you. But thank you," she answered dropping the _h_, as people did here, just to try it, just to see if she could.

If her deception failed, he didn't let on and raised his hat once more. "If you change your mind, it's just around the corner."

She wouldn't, but what if she did? What if she were someone else- Edith, say? Maybe she would have married him, this stranger- hitched onto his life, his plans, his dreams- whatever they were. Or maybe not. But the notion stayed with her that possibility, a new future, could be just around the corner, so close and easily embarked on. At the hotel she could be only Lady Sybil, but on the street, in the city, she could be and become anyone. The post-war world was flush with new and exotic identities, imported from cinema and music- tonight, they'd borrow a samba from Brazil- that could be assumed and shed and traded, _nothing is fixed anymore._.. and that was the real fault line, she thought, that divided those like her whom that truth thrilled and those like her father whom it terrified.

At the corner, she glanced down the perpendicular street, in shadow but for the checkerboard squares of light from open establishments, one which was presumably a cafe with a waiting lad. And then she went on, excited to meet Tom, her new friends, and the future that was already hers.

* * *

><p>The white bulbs that spelled out the <em>Grand Palais <em>dance hall down the spine of a red brick exterior were already in view when an unmistakable voice called out to her from the opposite side of the street: "Hey, beautiful."

Sybil turned to see Tom and his easy smile coming out of a storefront badly in need of new paint. There was no one around except a waiter sweeping the sidewalk, who leaned on his broom and offered an amiable _atta boy_ whistle as Tom jogged across to meet her and she grinned, the enervation she felt at dinner replaced by anticipation for what the evening might bring. "What are you-?"

"Watching for you." He collected her hands in his, a young man in love- he was too with how her eyes matched her pretty blue coat, the one she'd worn on the train to Liverpool and on the crossing and on his mother's doorstep that first day; he would enjoy the night now because she had arrived and nothing was ever very enjoyable without her. She noticed his cuffs were unbuttoned- _he must have had his sleeves rolled up at work- _and while undried ink on a draft could ruin a suit, it was a concession too. "We're all in there," he told her with a thumb toward the storefront, but Sybil couldn't discern from the outside what kind of establishment it was.

"No dancing?"

"Later. Clare thought it best if we were all a bit lit beforehand."

She laughed. "If that's true, I'll be the best dancer out there. I had five different wines with dinner."

Her spirit hadn't faltered, even after his earlier moodiness and though his concerns weren't trivial, Liam had put them in perspective and he was determined to be better. "Did you have a nice time with your sisters?"

"Oh, it was fine."

Of course, his defenses instinctively flared- what verdict had they rendered on him and Dublin once they had Sybil to themselves?- but he took a breath and did as his brother prescribed and offered the benefit of the doubt. "A lot's changed," he said, with conspicuous moderation. "It's bound to take some time for you three to find your stride again- a day, at least."

"We're fine," she assured him. "I had a nice, albeit brief chat with Mary." She smiled to herself. Not that she would dare tell Tom what they had discussed.

"Lady Edith didn't want to come out tonight?" Sybil shook her head. "Too bad. I think she'd enjoy herself."

"Maybe I can convince her tomorrow."

Sybil wanted to join the others, but Tom resisted. "I did want the chance to speak to you for a moment." She caught the additional, unnecessary verb; sometimes he talked like she did when he wished to ease her mind. He footed around the words for a long minute. "I never want to be the sort of husband who makes it _harder," _he finally professed to her and his pain about this was evident._ "_God knows I don't. I made it harder for you today and I'm truly sorry for it."

"Tom..." She had not understood until Dublin, at that unmarked bar to be precise, how much the specter of his father influenced him and his conduct with her; fortunately, she alone had the power to acquit him. "I know." She impressed it into his hands. "I do."

"I take it all so personally. It's my pride," he rued. "Not like I need to tell you."

"But for your pride, we wouldn't be here." Her eyes flickered up to the fast-moving clouds. _It's what made you say it when you knew you shouldn't- thank God, oh thank God you did_. "Don't you ever feel bad about that."

"The pride is being with you," he resolved. "I just have to let the rest of it roll off my back." He surrendered with a sheepish shrug. "Easier said than done, admittedly."

From the window, Liam watched the mimed conversation. Predictably, Tom had taken her hands and (presumably) poured himself out to her. _Oh, Tommy_. He could never bear to be imperfect to people he loved. He could be pigheaded and blunt to a fault, but there was no one more loyal, no better person to have in your corner than his brother. Liam knew this firsthand. It's what made him fear _that_ _English girl _would abuse and exploit Tom's devotion, but there she stood under a streetlamp in Sinn Fein-run Dublin, raising her hand to his cheek. _Yes, Sybil is alright_._  
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Liam felt Clare's arm come around his shoulder. "Why are they out there?"

"Tom's upset," Liam told her.

"Why?"

Liam smiled, small and honest. "Because he's not perfect."

Clare considered that as they watched the silent silhouettes of Tom and Sybil work out whatever was between them and then she said, "Sybil's two years older than me, but sometimes I feel I have to censor myself when we talk. Like, she asked how we met and I said at dancing, but I didn't say I'd come with someone else. Or that I let you take me home." They smiled at each other. It had been an instant, electric attraction- still was- and they'd spent nearly every night together since. "I just wasn't sure she'd- understand how that can happen, you know?"

"Well, Claree"- Liam cupped her chin with one hand and kissed the tip of her freckled nose- "you're a special circumstance."

"Damn right," she replied although she knew to what he referred.

"And Sybil's savvier than you think."

Clare's head whipped back to the window. "_Really_."

"So says my mother."

"Ha! Good for Sybil." Clare _had_ wondered; Sybil spoke so casually about their wild story: the years-long secret affair, the car chase to Scotland, _I will not give him up _but it just didn't seem plausible that all that passion slept with its hands folded politely on Mrs. Branson's sofa. It had been three _years,_ after all, but then_ Sybil was a different sort of girl._ Though _not so different, apparently _and some part of Clare wished the two of them could ditch the boys tonight and go get drunk together. Especially if she didn't have to watch what she said around Sybil. In answer to her mind's question she mused out loud, "She _was_ a nurse. She could have lifted something from the hospital."

But Liam had other plans- plans which included the four of them making an evening of it because he threw open the casement window and shouted out, "For God's sake Tom, have the decency to romance her with a drink and a chair!"

Clare leaned across him and waved and Sybil squealed at the sight of the bright orange dress they'd ogled at a shop off Grafton last week. "You bought it!"

"Aye, I did," Clare called back. "And just wait till you see what I've done to it!" She thrust her bare shoulder into view.

Sybil squinted to see what she could not believe- "Did you cut the sleeve?"- but at her friend's confirming nod her jaw dropped and curved with admiration. "_Fantastic_," she uttered and Tom just shook his head; Sybil of all people could appreciate a sartorial showstopper.

"It's like Theda Bara, don't you think?" But Sybil had never seen a Theda Bara picture. "Her new one's coming to the Volta- you'll have to come with us!" Clare said and beckoned them to come in so they could make plans.

They went, but Sybil stopped them just outside the door, the last opportunity for a private moment and said with quiet emphasis, "My whole heart, always. I meant it before, I mean it now, I'll mean it forever. Whatever that's worth to your pride."

He let it echo in her slight nod, then opened the door and held it for her. "Only the world," he said and followed her in.

* * *

><p>Clare sprang up from a wobbly table, with Liam on her heels, when Sybil entered and was hit with thick smoke and the jubilant noise of Thursday-on-the-eve-of-Friday: voices shouting over the gramaphone cranking music from the States, the <em>clack-clack<em> of billiards balls, the trill of the bell that alerted the bemused barmaid that another round was needed. It was packed and young- no one was over thirty- and both sexes milled around in uniform or in office attire with political accents: Celtic insignia, black military boots under suit pants for the men, belted jackets and berets on the women. It was loosely mixed company, cigarettes and wise-cracks dangled from lopsided grins, idle hands held indiscreet locations, cheeks were ruddy from drink or favor from another. In the back corner, a couple was kissing fervently. Sybil had never seen, nor could she have fathomed, such a place could exist, not even in the soldiers' stories of Paris on leave.

"What _is_ this place?"

"_An Cloch_ is what it's called. Government fellas like to knock about here after work," Clare answered as if it were the most ordinary scene. _Perhaps for her_, but it was not just fellas- a third of the room was young women, including a woman almost two metres tall, with chopped hair even shorter than hers standing over a card game in serge pants- real, military _pants!- _and Sybil could not stop staring, even as she complimented the adventurous tailoring of Clare's outfit and how well the sunset color sat against her pale Irish skin.

"It matches the Whitsunday flowers," Sybil told her, a bit distractedly. "You should wear it to the wedding!"

The three Catholics laughed at that- "They wouldn't even let me in the door!"- and launched into a brief debate about how many Hail Marys a one-shouldered dress would warrant before Liam asked Sybil about her _la-ti-da_ dinner at the Royal Hibernian Hotel.

"I can't eat like that anymore," she groaned with a hand to her stomach. "_Bechamel, foie gras_, six _amuses-bouches- _ugh."

"Is that English?" Clare tittered with a look between Liam and Tom. "Because I didn't understand a word!" Her light, comic tone was belied by a sharpness in her green eyes and Sybil cursed herself for her unthinking statement- _why did I have to say it so snobbily_?- which had just exposed their castes: Sybil at the rarefied top; Tom about to marry into it; Liam, who had the social elevation that a university education and a prestige job provided. And at the bottom was Clare, who'd left school at sixteen and worked at a boarding-house for ship hands who couldn't afford hotel accommodations. Sybil was learning to be better about what she said and to whom, but sometimes she forgot to imagine how her words might sound to someone like Clare, who had never eaten in a real restaurant in her life.

Liam spoke before Sybil could. "It's French- fancy talk for sauce, meat and sides," he told Clare. "You know how rich people always need to sound like they don't breathe the same air." Sybil didn't contest it, even though it was not true of her, because it was an argument that clearly resonated with Clare and her experience.

"I'd much rather have had fish and chips with you," Sybil said as an apology. "Then I wouldn't have a stomachache from all that disgusting food."

Clare smiled in acceptance. "Good thing your reception's at the pub then. Can't have the bride with your head in the bin on Saturday!"

Tom clapped Sybil on the back- "You know what's good for an upset stomach? Guinness!"- and, comity restored, he went to procure drinks while the others went to reclaim their table. Every head turned to Clare as they wove their way through the crowded room. Sybil came over her friend's shoulder to make sure she knew it. "This is the best part of a bold frock!" she exclaimed. "The _reactions_!"

Clare grinned back at her. "You're an exhibitionist!"

"A what?" Sybil asked as they sat down at a table strewn with empty pint glasses.

"Someone who likes a lot of attention."

"That's not what it is," Liam joined in. "A kitten likes attention, but it's not an exhibitionist."

"So what it is then, your brilliance?" Sybil bit her lip- Clare sounded _exactly_ like Mrs. Branson just then.

"An exhibitionist," Liam began, striking a professorial tone, "is a person who prefers to be naked."

Clare didn't miss the opening- "So like you?"- and Sybil laughed along with them, even though she was a bit shocked by them bantering like that in public and in front of her. _What would Edith think if she were here_? Perhaps she would find out tomorrow.

Shortly, Tom returned with four stouts impressively balanced in two hands- "I worked as a waiter once"- and the conversation turned to music and a disastrous plumbing incident at the boarding-house that had occupied much of Clare's workday. Sybil tried to pay attention, but her eye was continually drawn to the women around her, especially the woman with short hair in pants.

"She's not a soldier," Liam said in answer to her amazed expression and Tom and Clare stopped to listen. "It's just an homage to the days when we used to have them."

"Women soldiers? Such as the Countess?"

"Aye, and others. Women marched in the Citizen Army." Sybil did not know what that was and Tom explained that it was a revolutionary movement that dated back to 1913, "a precursor to the precursor," which is to say 1913 to 1916 to now. "The first modern army in the world to enlist women," Liam boasted. "But, we don't do that anymore."

"Why not?"

Liam demurred with a vague comment about how the eyes of the world were on Ireland right now and certain people at the top- at this, the reporter at the table demanded, "Who? De Valera?" which Liam neither confirmed nor denied, but finished his sentence that these certain top _people_ did not think world leaders would take seriously a country where women were running amok with rifles.

Sybil frowned. "Well, when you say it like _that_..."

"Like what?"

"Like we're chickens without heads! You'd never describe enlisted _men_ as '_running amok with rifles_.'"

"Easy, Princess. You asked about the policy- that's the thinking behind it," Liam defended. "I never said I agreed with it."

"_Do_ you?" Sybil demanded.

His aggrieved expression confirmed he did not- and Sybil had no doubt it was not the only policy on which he was holding back his real opinion. "You don't argue with the doctor's orders, do you? No. You execute them, as you're employed to do. Same as me."

Tom scoffed. "It's hardly the same. Government _is_ debate."

"No, _democracy_ is debate and the debate was the election," Liam countered. "Besides, we have enough dissent from outside, thank you very much Mister _Irish Daily_. We don't need it from people inside too- then nothing would be accomplished."

Tom sniffed with disbelief. "The Citizen Army was also Marxist," he told Sybil. "It's no coincidence it was more progressive than the current republican leadership."

"The current republican leadership is plenty progressive. 'Equal rights and equal opportunities' for all our citizens. That is the Sinn Fein manifesto. That's what we ran on, that's what we promised, and we will deliver."

"And what about property laws?" Clare spoke for the first time since the conversation had turned to politics, in which she claimed no interest; business, however, was another story. "Will you make it so women can buy their own property and it won't all go to their husbands?"

"Does that happen?" Tom was surprised, though a quick glance found his fiancee was not.

"That's the law now," Clare said. "The Madam"- her nickname for her battleaxe boss who owned the boarding-house- "says a woman with business ambitions should never marry. I'm sorry to tell you," she turned with sympathy to the bride-to-be, "but it's _your_ law."

"I'm confident that if there's one law a free and independent Ireland will not be observing," Liam assured her, "it's a British property law-"

"It's not a property law," Clare corrected, "it's a _marital_ law. When a woman marries, her husband takes ownership of her- and therefore, all her money _and_ her property. Her whole life's work, if she's spent her life working."

Tom couldn't wrap his head around it- but then, transfer of ownership wasn't a problem that affected poor families. "So if we lived in England," he posed to Sybil, "I'd own your share of the Abbey? No wonder your father hates me."

"My share?" she echoed with a laugh. "I'm the third-born daughter. You already have as much ownership as I do- which is to say, zero." But despite the undeniably terrible current state of affairs for women, she couldn't share Clare's skepticism about the potential for change. Not if women were helping make the laws. Not if there existed a place like this, where women freely talked politics with men and some of them did it in pants. "Do all these women work with you, Liam?"

He did a quick survey of the room, but as Sinn Fein's offices were scattered around Dublin he couldn't accurately say. "Yeah, some of them work at Harcourt Street with me."

"But do they do jobs like yours?" Sybil pressed. "Not just secretarial work?"

"Oh, sure they do. It's a new world, Sybil." She was so pleased with the answer, he couldn't resist asking, "Why? Do _you_ want a job with Sinn Fein?"

Sybil wasn't sure if he was making fun of her and mumbled, "I'm not sure I'd be the right fit."

"Why not? You like politics and you have experience. And after Saturday, you'll be sort of Irish." Tom interjected to warn him not to make a comment like that when he met Sybil's sisters.

"I know the Countess is an MP, but..." Sybil had secretly harbored a doubt she had never before voiced and she wasn't sure she was ready to voice it now, lest it be confirmed.

Liam cocked an eyebrow. "But what?"

"Is it just a stunt?" she asked and braced herself for disappointment. "Of course, it _looks_ good and makes the international headlines, but do men in power really care what a woman has to say?"

Liam sat back and crossed his arms. "Huh. I don't know that _I_ can convince you," he started, "but I bet I know someone who could." He turned round in his chair and called at the card table, "Rebecca!" The woman in pants looked up. "Come here and let me buy you a drink," he offered with a grin. "There's someone I think you should meet."


	69. Chapter 69: A New World Part II

_ this update comes to you live from a snug in a Dublin pub... and for all you patient Edith fans, that is a spoiler alert for the near future ;)_

_special thanks to chickwriter for flailing over Irish history with me... it is super cool to walk around and envision how our hero & heroine would have thrived in a revolutionary city. for those of you who are interested, I'll post some photos of LT locations when I'm back!  
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_Thanks as always for the reviews!_

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><p><strong>Thursday, June 19 1919<strong>

"Oh, don't ask her to-" Clare's protest abruptly ceased; it was too late, Rebecca was coming over, preceded by the highest regard from her colleague Liam and a conspicuously hostile reception of unclear reasons from Clare, whom Sybil previously believed got on with everyone. "She always talks like she's making a speech," Clare grumbled before Rebecca came into earshot.

"Rebecca can be a little... _intense_," Liam conceded, "but she's smart as a whip. Top of her class at National." National University was a fairly new and wonderful experiment: fully equal and co-educational with women faculty and administrators and it was secular. "She's probably the most intelligent person in our office."

"The_ most_ intelligent..." Sybil savored the superlative. Like Tom- and Matthew too- Liam had an advanced view of women, undoubtedly the influence of his mother; it thrilled Sybil to hear him laud a female colleague (not least because of her own record of high achievement in the workplace), "...even if she's not a real revolutionary."

"She's not a real _soldier,_" Liam corrected with a smile. "Ask your people if she's a real revolutionary, Princess."

"They're not my people." Her retort was fast, automatic- it surprised them all, especially Tom but most of all herself; but she could not say it was untrue, _not really, not anymore_. "And don't call me that. Not in front of her." And Tom couldn't help but chuckle at Sybil's first-date fluster as the real, live female revolutionary with her black helmet haircut, university accolades, and trousers arrived at their table to Sybil's wide-eyed wonderment. And mortification- she had never been the "traditional" woman at the table, but her fancy dinner attire was no match for trousers or a one-shouldered dress and she did not like it one bit.

Tom and Liam stood for Rebecca, but Liam did not offer any of the usual courtesies a man customarily would; Tom shook her hand and Sybil was surprised to learn they were acquainted- sort of. "Well, well. The other Mr. Branson." Rebecca grinned, her tone full of respect. "Our formidable opponent in the flesh."

"Journalists are neutral," Tom replied with the same. "We're on the side of truth, only."

"Sybil, this is Rebecca Halloran." Sybil did not miss the unmistakable flash of adulation in her eyes as Liam directed her attention- and neither, she was sure, did Clare. So that's one reason. "She works with me at Harcourt Street in Props."

"The Ministry of Propaganda," Tom clarified. "Rebecca's one of the people who refuse to return our request for comment in a timely fashion. I'm still waiting for an official response to our poll on the business tax proposal." Rebecca and Tom, it turned out, had exchanged many terse ("but always professional") messages on multiple stories, but had never met in person; he also had not suspected that correspondence signed by an _R. James Halloran_ came from a woman whose middle name was her mother's maiden one.

"Rebecca, this is my almost sister-in-law, Sybil. Aileen is very excited to have another female firebrand in the Branson family." Aileen was a regular fixture at the Harcourt offices and on Liam's shoulders at political rallies and was a favorite of the staffers she idolized. "Sybil and Tom are getting married on Saturday."

"Congratulations, then." Rebecca stuck out her hand and shook Sybil's- firmly, as if they were men- a startling gesture and it took Sybil an extra second to put some muscle into it (not wanting to be pegged as some weak-wristed debutante), but the lag time left the impression that she wouldn't let go of the rebel girl's hand.

"Looks like you've got competition," Liam leaned over and teased his brother. "Sorry about that."

"I'm only sorry we don't have a camera," Tom replied, quite tickled by his fiancee's infatuation. "To take a picture for His Lordship." _And one for Mr. Carson too._

"Oh! You're English," Rebecca realized when Sybil spoke. "You're very welcome here, you know," she said as she took the seat Tom had pulled between himself and Sybil.

Clare, sullen in the far corner, cut in, "Funny of you to welcome her to _our_ table, isn't it?"

"Here in _Ireland_," Rebecca clarified. "Ireland has no grievance against Britain," she said, her black eyes trained on Sybil as if she were the only person in the room and this were the most important conversation that would ever be had in the world; an easy flattery for Sybil, who'd spent most of her life having her opinions beaten down. "Nor any nation for that matter. We had a democratic vote and a peaceful transfer of power. We're focused on the future, not the past."

Tom quirked an eyebrow at Liam-_ that's a bit premature, don't you think?_ especially since Liam himself had said the other day that now would be "an opportune time" for Britain to clamp down- which Liam shrugged off: _she works in Props, what do you expect?_

"Um, thank you," Sybil replied, not quite sure how to respond to that. "Thanks very much."

"Don't do that," Rebecca instructed sharply. "Don't over-thank. Men never do that because a man would never think to be grateful when someone gives them the time of day." Clare crossed her arms with a_ see what I mean?_ expression. "If you are interested in equality, Sybil, then you must be aware not to be complicit in your own oppression."

_So that's what Liam meant by intense._ But Sybil liked her bluntness. "What do you mean?"

"Women have been raised to undermine themselves- to be silly, indecisive, to not opine or offend. To thank and apologize. Be aware of that in your words and your ways." She went on to say that stance was important because, "Women need not_ ask_ for equal treatment- it's not for men to_ give_ us. All people are created equal in the eyes of God, inequality is a condition created by others. Self-determination is the right of all people: the Irish, women, everyone."

It was an eloquent belief- one which Tom and Liam echoed enthusiastically- but Sybil could never have made that pitch in Yorkshire; the men she convinced to sign the suffrage petition would have slammed the door in the face of such feminine arrogance. _But perhaps that's what she meant_- _be aware. _Why_ should_ she have to change to conform to the prejudices of others? _This Rebecca clearly hasn't _and she was terrifically successful. "Did you always want to go into politics?" Sybil asked her.

"One doesn't '_go into'_ politics. Everyone who was born somewhere or lives somewhere is in politics- whether they care is separate issue." Across the table, Clare rolled her eyes.

"Sybil's political. Has quite a sharp mind about it to," Liam vouched for her and Tom added that she had been both the mastermind behind the poll.

"Is that so? Sounds like we could use you on our side." Rebecca smiled with approval and though Sybil had never been one to pursue others' acceptance, she was glad to have won hers. "Perhaps I'll recruit you."

That was not mere nicety; Sinn Fein had a bold ambition of Ireland as the most progressive nation in the world and Sybil seemed exactly the sort of person it would benefit. Most working-class women lacked vision; they only wanted to know how and how soon a free Ireland would put another half crown in their pocket. But to help a young woman with the stars in her eyes- that's what Rebecca was in politics _for_.

"Here, there is to be no discrimination as to sex for any office and women must be eligible for any position in the country," Rebecca stated proudly. "That's not just rhetoric- it's a direct order from the new Acting President issued at our convention."

"Arthur Griffith," Tom interjected, ever mindful to apprise Sybil of names and nuances. "He's in charge while de Valera's in America."

Clare snorted. "First, a sourpuss schoolteacher with a foreign name"- that was de Valera- "and now an old man prune! What sort of statement is that about your grand, newborn Ireland?"

"Your Ireland as well, Clare," Liam checked her evenly, as some fellow Sinn Feiners at the next table listened in suspiciously.

"They should get someone young and handsome. Like you," Clare drawled; a provocation more than a compliment. Liam simply laughed and replied that no one had offered him the job of president. "What about that Mr. Collins then?" Clare persisted. "He's handsome- tall, dark, with a bit of the devil in his eye as well, I think." She tossed her head flirtatiously. "I'd follow him anywhere and so would every woman I know."

On that, Rebecca snapped. "Comments like_ that,_" she admonished, "are exactly why women have been denied the vote."

"Oh shut up," Clare muttered under her breath and then louder, "What do I care, I won't be twenty-one for another two years."

Sybil straightened up. "Women can vote here at twenty-one?" Tom had got the vote in December at twenty-seven, but he'd said women had to be thirty.

"That's British law," Rebecca said. "In the new Republic, all citizens over 21 have the vote."

"Is Sybil considered a citizen?" Tom asked. "I mean, once we're married."

Rebecca conferred briefly with Liam. "I'd think so, as a resident with an Irish-born spouse. Of course, we haven't written it up yet- it's only one of a million things to do building a country from scratch!" Liam concurred with a weary nod at the reminder of his workload. "And you live in the Countess' district, so there's no worry that, being British, you'd skew the results conservative. There won't be any bad choices on your ballot!"

"It'll be Bolshevik or more Bolshevik," as Liam put it, "since yours is the most leftist neighborhood west of Petrograd!"

"No matter the details, the fact remains that 'equal rights and equal opportunities' is the law of the land now, Sybil," Rebecca emphasized. "So you'd better get used to it- here, you're no less and no more than Tom."

"I'm plenty used to it. Tom and I have always been equals to each other." She smiled at him across the table. "It's high time the world caught up with _us._"

"I hate to ask," Tom started, "but isn't 'equal opportunity' awfully broad? A right is one thing- it can be decided in court. What exactly is an opportunity and how does the Dail Eireann plan to issue them to people?"

"And you wonder why we don't return requests from the _Irish Daily,_" Rebecca replied. "We don't find the _Daily_ to be particularly helpful."

"It's just a question," Tom retorted. "Will they come by post or will we have to queue up for them?" He didn't mean to badger but the fact remained: "It's not 'the law of the land' if you can't even say what it is."

Rebecca was unruffled; it was her job to deal with skeptical, know-it-all reporters. "I'll tell you what: you write to the editor of the _Bulletin_ and ask him to explain it for you."

"What's the _Bulletin_?" Tom asked. "A newspaper?"

"_Our_ newspaper."

"Sinn Fein has its own newspaper?" Tom did not like the sound of that.

"As of next month," Rebecca confirmed. "They've put in a press at Harcourt."

"In your offices?" Tom whipped to his brother. "A newspaper printed by the party in power! Which candidates will they endorse, I wonder? Some democracy that is!"

Liam understood- and shared- the concern, but he had to take it on the chin. "Easy, Tom. It's supplemental. We feel," he started and hated to include himself, "that the citizens of this country have an interest in the goings-on of their democratically-elected government that is not being served by the establishment press. But not to worry- the _Daily_ can still publish all the pro-British editorials it wants."

"Don't give me that." _The Daily_ wasn't friendly, but it wasn't _The Times._ "I've supported an Irish Republic since before you could spell it."

"_You_ do," Liam retorted. "Your editors are another story."

"You could always come work with us," Rebecca offered Tom. "You _and_ Sybil. She could run the polls. They do sell papers."

Sybil put her chin in her hand. "I like it- a husband and wife team. We could set up shop in the first floor of one of those Georgians with our desks facing each other. We'd fight like cats and dogs over the edits and swear and yell and call each other 'Branson,'" she imagined. "And when the work day was over, we'd walk out arm-in-arm and eat dinner at our favorite table at our favorite restaurant. What do you say, Tom? Want to work with me?"

"We'd make a brilliant team, love, and I'd work with you in a heartbeat," Tom answered. "But there's not a chance in hell it'll be at a party-run newspaper."

Tom went to buy a round of drinks- to imbibe as much as to defuse an argument. "So Sybil," Rebecca turned to her, "if not newspapers or politics, what do you want to do?"

"I was a VAD in the War," Sybil told her. The VAD program was a particular exacerbation for Rebecca- women who'd labored for years for no pay in service to "the boys" and the war effort were now being told it didn't count as_ real_ _work_. It was a complete crock and the focus on the "problem" of VADs in the work-force was deliberate misdirection from the real problems of low pay and slave hours for the city's nurses. "I hope to be able-"

"Hope is for God and Father Christmas, Sybil. Men don't hope for things, they demand them." Rebecca schooled her the way a teacher would a pupil with promise and Sybil knew it. "So what do you _want_?"

"I _want_ to be a surgical nurse at a big hospital." It felt _good_ to say it and just like that too. "And I want to work on the hardest cases- not gallstones or midwifery or anything like that. We've made so many medical advancements since the War- we can save lives we never could before. That's what I want to do."

Rebecca clapped her on the back with a grin. "If that's what you want, then that's what you _will_ do. Come with me and let's make a plan."

Rebecca excused them and Liam and Clare were left alone. "I know you hate this stuff, but Sybil loves it and Tom wants her to make friends here. Be nice for one more drink and then we'll go dancing." She assented with a reluctant nod- she would do it for Sybil- and Liam kissed her cheek. "You look damn gorgeous in that dress, you know."

"I know."

"I mean, every man in this room is-"

"I_ know_," she said with a half-smirk.

"You can't expect me to-"

She turned to him and smiled. "Do I ever?"

But their flirtation was interrupted by a soft-spoken lad of about twenty in a rumpled military jacket; Liam made him out to be one of the men chatting up Clare earlier. "Miss Kelly?" He pointed to the bagatelle table. "It's freed up. I wonder if you'd like to take a turn?"

"I think I will, thanks. And you can call me Clare." She stood up and took one of the pints from a returning Tom and said to Liam, "I'll be having that last drink over there."

Tom looked between his abandoned brother and Clare, who was bent over the table sizing up a shot. "What's that about?"

"Nothing." Liam took a drink and explained his lack of concern with a circuitous anecdote- "_Jesus, Liam, what _happened?"- that eventually led to, "Some sailor feck named Henry. We were out, we had a row because I was- well, she kissed him." He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "It was last week. Ancient history." To Tom's _good grief _expression, his brother pointed to Sybil and Rebecca in the back, in an animated_ tete-a-tete_ with political literature spread on the table in front of them. "You worry about your own girl, Tommy."

Tom laughed. "I probably should. You know Sybil's agreed to marry exactly one-hundred percent of the people who've wooed her with political pamphlets."

* * *

><p>They made a plan and Rebecca sent Sybil off with a card with an address and a name, as well as other literature about Sinn Fein's commitment to women and the next municipal election-"It's just as important, Sybil, to vote for the people who can execute the Countess' ideas at the local level"- and a poster that reiterated Rebecca's statement that a woman could run for any seat in the country: "We'll run dozens of them in '20, more than ever before!"<p>

Sybil plucked a folded paper from a handful Rebecca was about to put back in her satchel. "What's this one?"

"I don't think you want that- it's for Cumann na mBan, the women's paramilitary," Rebecca told her, then revised, "Oh hell, take it anyway. Your MP was in it, you know, before she was in jail and then in parliament!"

"That's quite an endorsement," Sybil chuckled as she added it to her collection.

"You could definitely wear trousers to their events. They are better for dodging bullets."

Sybil laughed again. "Well, I won't say thank you," she started with just a hint of a bite, "but I will read it all."

"The Republic is very invested in the success of its women, Sybil. And we need to help each other. I will help in whatever way I can." This time, Sybil put out her hand first and shook Rebecca's with confidence and might. "Good luck to you."

She went to rejoin her friends and found Liam and Tom were in conversation with some other political-types, but Clare was nowhere to be seen. Sybil found her at the bar with a drink and the devoted attention of some new hapless chap. When Sybil came over, Clare asked him for fag and then promptly turned in the other direction. "I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't. But you do." Clare handed over the cigarette and struck a match for her. "You don't need to dislike her on my behalf, you know."

There was an outburst of claps and stomps from the front; someone had started to make a speech. "Liam doesn't like her like that, I don't think," Sybil attempted as a consolation.

"No, of course he doesn't." _So that's not it_. But Clare was blunt and if she wanted Sybil to know more, she would tell her. They listened as the speech turned into a chant, then to full-blown song- a revolutionary ballad, sung with such spirit that even the bemused barmaid was moved to cry "Up the rebellion!" at the end.

A funny, farcical look set on Clare's face and when the song had waned, she said to Sybil, "To my mind, Ireland has hundred worse problems than the English. Not that you could ever say that to this lot."

"You really don't care about freedom for Ireland?"

Clare answered the question with one of her own. "Rebecca's family lives in a mansion on St. Stephen's Green- what's British rule of Ireland ever cost her?" She shook her head. "She thinks Liam is one of her university men. But he's like us." _Us_? "From the slums. Me and Liam and Tom." There was a darkness in her eyes that Sybil had not seen before. "Did the English make their father take the drink? I don't think so."

"Tom doesn't talk about him much. At least not to me," Sybil told her. "Just once when I asked and then that time we were away, he woke me up to say he would square it all with my father. I think it was somewhat about that."

Just as quickly, the darkness dissipated as Clare smiled and said, "So you shared a bed then, yeah?" Sybil's hand flew to her mouth, embarrassed. Since when did she speak so casually about such things? Clare however, wanted to hug her. "You don't have to tell me, but I won't tell a soul. I think it's grand, just grand that you did." She took her hand and pulled her off the barstool. "Come on, let's collect the boys."

* * *

><p>The four of them convened out front as a new ballad started, louder and drunker and more jovial than the last; it poured out the window as Liam helped Clare into her coat and Sybil relayed the plan she and Rebecca had concocted to Tom: "There's a push to pass a law so VADs can't be licensed to work, but the union doesn't support the plan. So I'll go here on Monday and see if I can get a lead on a job."<p>

She handed him the card; he looked at it, at her, at it, and back to her. "The Irish Women's Workers' Union?"

"They have a union for nurses."

"You're going to join a union?"

"I will if they'll have me."

"They'll make you wear a union patch on your uniform."

"So? What of it?"

"Nothing," he chuckled, hands finding his pockets. "But the sight of that will fell your grandmother faster than a guillotine."

But Sybil did not think this was funny in the least. "Listen Tom, if that proposal becomes law, I'd have to study three years just to take the examination." She put a hand on her hip. "The annual pay for nurses is 40 pounds a year. Who can afford to study three years for forty pounds?" Obviously, well-to-do women who didn't need to work, but he let the question remain rhetorical as she declared, "If I spend three_ years_ on a course, you'd best believe I'm coming out a doctor!"

"A doctor?" It was the first time she'd mentioned it. "My wife, the Bolshevik doctor," he mulled it over. "Sounds about right, actually."

"I worked with plenty of so-called 'real' nurses who were absolute rubbish. We should be judged on our work, that's all. And if that makes me a Bolshevik- bully for that!"

"No more politics!" Clare ordered merrily. "For the rest of the night, there will be only fun!" She reached for Liam's hand. "And maybe love," she finished as they four set off down the street for the dance hall.


	70. Chapter 70: A Last Reckless Night

_Thanks as ever for the reviews! Life is super busy, but I'll try to sort out those pictures asap. _

_Two quick broader notes: one, watch the characters for how they change as the situation in Ireland changes. And two, no details are inconsequential ;) _

_For now, here's some fun on Tom and Sybil's "last reckless night." _

_There is a music cue (a first!) to start. Listen here: youtube-com/watch?v=VW33oH_EkW4_

* * *

><p><strong>Thursday into Friday<strong>

**June 19 & 20, 1919**

In a part of the city south of the Liffey where the houses were low, the windows of a second-story flat that faced the street were lit up and open. The houe sat on the corner of a lane and a close- roads with little traffic- and as they walked by on their way toward the river, a tinny American voice called to them in the dark:

_Now won't you listen honey, while I say,  
>How could you tell me that you're goin' away? <em>

Clare stopped short and seized Liam's arm. "Oh, I love this one!"

"Me too," Sybil said and she started to hum:

_Don't say that we must part,  
>Don't break your baby's heart <em>

"It's Marion Harris," she told Tom.

He had never asked her what kind of music she liked; he had only ever heard classical and the occasional standard for the officers' concerts up at the house. "Where did you listen to American records?"

At the hospital of course, she told him; a British officer there had inherited them from an Italian ambulance driver whose American nurse-lover had left him and returned home. Such was the story of the War, and how the great world became small.

"Don't be so surprised, Tom," Clare laughed. "It was only the most popular record of 1918!"

"We led a cloistered life in Yorkshire," Tom told her. He had to admit, he hadn't heard much of Sybil's story after "_the nurse who was his lover_." And now, in restitution for that lost past, he extended his hand. "Would you dance with me?"

Her face lit up. "Here?"

"Why not?" He stepped to her and took her in his arms. "Who needs a dance hall when we have an empty street and the most popular record of 1918?" The first turn was hobbled- the heel of her shoe caught in between the stones- but it was great fun and, not to be outdone, Liam and Clare quickly followed, the couples keeping up the conversation as they danced side-by-side.

"Maybe I should call you baby." He demonstrated with a bad American accent. "Careful, baby, watch where you step."

"Please don't," she groaned with a chuckle.

"Some American you are," he teased as he turned them again.

"Are you American, Sybil?" Clare asked, surprised.

"My mother is."

"Huh. So if you did have a child"- Sybil and Tom cocked their heads at Liam's presumption that they would _or_ would not- "it would be three-quarters Irish and American and only a quarter English."

"Aren't Americans just English people by another name?"

Sybil burst out laughing. "Goodness, no." _Would that Granny and Grandmama were here to hear that!_ "At least, _they_ certainly don't think so."

Tom told her to wait until Sunday, when de Valera arrived in the States. "Then you'll see who the American people really are, and who their sympathies are with!"

Sybil loved Tom's enthusiasm and was curious herself to see what happened, but she felt obliged to remind him that was not _all _there was to look forward to on Sunday, _our first married day together_. "If you want to know how we'll be spending our honeymoon," she joked, "my husband will be in bed with his true love- newspapers."

The music ceased then as the record was switched and Clare took the opportunity to set her own tune and show off her samba steps with Liam- impressively, to Tom and Sybil. "You two look good!" he called over.

Clare beamed. "We practice in my room.

"We do," Liam echoed with a twinkle in his eye. "And sometimes, we even dance." Clare responded with a swat before a slow, warbly ballad came on and the couples discreetly danced away from each other, each pretending they were in private.

Tom kissed softly at Sybil's temple and remarked how nice this was. She looked up at him. "They had dances in Yorkshire, you know."

"Did they?"

"You know what I mean."

He smiled at her and demurred. "Do I?"

"Did you really- never, with anyone else?" It's not that she would have taken offense; on the contrary, she could only now, so easily holding and being held by him, understand how extraordinary that was. To wait without expectation, to wait alone. She had always been alone, but he hadn't. It would have been so easy to... "All those years, even before you asked me?"

"Did _you_?"

"Of course _I _didn't." There had been the time Larry Grey had flustered her when he'd tried tricked her onto the balcony- perhaps it wasn't exactly a trick, but she certainly wasn't wise to his intentions- and tried to kiss her; he refused to speak to her after what he took to be her rejection. That was the start and end of the book on Sybil Crawley's love life until Tom Branson entered it a month later with his news and his hand and his cheeky unfinished suppositions. "We were women in a child's life, as Mary once put it."

"Well. To be honest," he started and her eyes widened at the prospect of an admission of another, "I had my eye on someone." He winked at her evident relief. "You were worth the wait, baby."

* * *

><p>When the flat-tenant shuttered the window on the music and their impromptu dance hall, they walked on, northbound on the south side towards the river, with a stop at a little sleeve of a pub- it reminded Sybil of a space left on a library shelf after a book had been pulled out- which was technically closed but Liam knew the publican from "my days of university debauchery" when his University College lads (he claimed) used to wipe the floor with their Trinity mates in debates. "It was all in good spirit though," he told them over whiskeys that none of them needed after a night of drinking, because Protestant Trinity was more pro-Rising than <em>the fecking priests ever were. <em>"Don't say that," Clare scolded him.

"What use have you ever had for the Church? You hated the nuns at school."

"Aye I did and they hated me right back with my wicked ways and I've no use for it, but it _is_ the Church. You can't speak against God."

"God's not the Church," Tom interjected quickly, "and thank Him for it!"

"What do you think, Sybil, about your church?"

She allowed a moment of thoughtful consideration before answering honestly with a shrug, "I don't really."

"I can't join you in your criticism tonight, Liam," Tom said, "since Ma's making me make Confession tomorrow."

"Well, if you're going to be absolved tomorrow," Liam lifted his drink and saluted his compatriots- "we'd best get on with our sinning tonight. Slainte!"

* * *

><p>They dawdled along the south quays and talked, their voices a bit too loud and gay for the time of night, but none of them caring. "You two can't appreciate this," Clare said over Liam's shoulder, "but <em>we<em> lived through curfew." Following the Rising, anyone out at night in Dublin would be automatically arrested (if not worse) which went on until the war distracted the British authorities from enforcing it. "There's nothing worse than being told where you can go and when. Especially if it's some bally policeman telling you _home_ and _now._"

Tom nuzzled Sybil's hair. "We could have made do, I think," he whispered or so he thought, but in front of them, Clare giggled, which prompted a hasty excuse from Sybil. "It is good that we are a bit- how did you put it?"

"Lit?"

"Yes!"

"Oh Sybil, you're so funny." Perhaps she was a little savvy on one subject, but Clare couldn't help think_ Sybil would be eaten alive here if she didn't have Tom_. She knew what the city- and city bosses and city men- did to naive, sheltered country girls far from home. She peeled away from Liam and took hold of Sybil's arm with the promise that "_someday we'll talk, really talk._"

They put their elbows on the wall of the quay and watched as Tom picked up a pebble and skipped it on the onyx river. "Not bad," Liam complimented, as he smoked. Tom found a bottle cap and repeated the feat. "Like a proper country boy."

Liam stubbed his fag and attempted the same. "You can't skip that," Tom told him. "Listen to your country bumpkin brother." Liam of course did not and of course, the stub hit the water and sunk. "Because it's porous, you dope."

"Are rocks not porous?" This set off a heated debate between them about porosity.

Clare turned to Sybil and rolled her eyes. "They're only doing it for us. You know how men are-" she did?- "The presence of a woman turns them all into fighting cocks." She sighed in a worldly way and turned her attention to the northern skyline. "See there?" She nodded toward Sackville Street, where the Post Office was. "In '16 that was all in flames. I had just left school and had a job out that way. Can you imagine London on fire? Or Yorkshire?" Sybil could not; though she supposed it was ironic that Papa claimed surprise that Tom hadn't burned the place down. But she couldn't say so to her friend. _Why would he think Tom would do that_? Clare would no doubt ask. _Because Papa thinks any of you would._ "The whole city smelled like burning for weeks after."

But Clare was never one to be serious or pensive for long and she turned to the boys and demanded that they "quit your bickering and pay attention to us!" Liam went to light another cigarette which Sybil plucked from his fingers, her tongue catching in her grin. "That's my last one!"

"All the more reason for you to give it to me," she said as she smoked. "I _am_ the bride and secondly, I'm to be your sister. What's the point of having a brother if not for him to give you his last fag?"

Liam put his hands on his hips. "Are you to be my pestering little sister now?"

"Little? We're the same age!"

"It's your own fault, Liam," Clare chided her boyfriend. "We've been out for hours and you've not bothered to buy more."

Liam protested that he was short of pocket money because "Liam Branson's paycheck isn't exactly a priority" for the new, broke Irish government. "You'd better palm off one of your university friends for tomorrow night then," Tom advised him. "I'm not buying one drop on the night before my wedding!"

"I'll borrow off Clare." Liam slung an arm around her shoulders as they started to walk on. "She's always flush."

"I am, but I didn't get that way loaning drinking money to the likes of you!"

"You must make a lot of money at the boarding-house," Sybil remarked.

Liam and Clare exchanged a conspiratorial glance before Liam delicately explained that one advantage of working in a boarding-house was the ability to get things from other countries at their sale price- or as Clare offered to Sybil, "One of our American sailors tells me they're wearing skirts shorter over there. I can get you some for cheaper than here if you like."

"Clare, are you a _smuggler_?"

"Holy Ghost, Tom- I'm not a pirate!"

She refuted in unison with Liam confirming that yes, she basically was. "You're a lot prettier than a pirate," he said. "For what it's worth."

"A fat lot of nothing, that's what. But I can get pretty much anything from anywhere." Including contraband, Liam piped up. "Yes!" Clare confirmed, dropping her voice. "We're having a little party next week-end. You ought to come along- horse races and a picnic with the Green Fairy!"

Sybil, of course, was clueless but Tom had come of age in the pre-War years when absinthe was all the rage. "I thought it had been banned out of production."

"Aha! _You_ would think that and you're a very knowledgeable journalist! But Pernod has recently re-opened a distillery in Spain. We have a Spaniard merchant who comes once a month and he has promised to bring with him several bottles. I'm taking three- one for us, and two to sell. I bet I can get quite the price for it. The Madam"- how Clare referred to her "gypsy" boss, the owner of the boarding-house- "is having an affair with him, I swear it."

"What do you care?" Liam asked. "She doesn't have a husband."

"I don't- but she better not end it before he delivers this week. I'd be out at least three quid and maybe five. I think absinthe is an officers' drink. The privates are too young to remember it."

"You know, a man in Switzerland killed his whole family after drinking that stuff," Tom informed them.

Clare clapped her hands together, undeterred. "Should make for quite the party then!"

* * *

><p>It was an outlandish idea that escalated to a dare and tomorrow, none of them would remember how except for an alcohol-induced feeling of invincibility and the warm hint of summer; but suddenly, Sybil had her foot in the lattice and was climbing onto the railing of Grattan Bridge and Clare was attempting the same on the opposite side reasoning that, "If a policeman catches us, he won't be able to nab us both" The dare (issued by- who else?- Liam) was (immediately accepted by- who else?- Sybil) to perform a tightrope walk on the handrail to the north end of the bridge.<p>

"Hold my hand," Tom instructed Sybil, who was up with one arm around the lamppost. She batted him away as she steadied herself. Across from her, Clare was doing the same. Some confused passers-by on the quay had stopped to stare. "Do it. You drink more than you think you do."

A man on a bicycle did a double-take and skidded to a halt. "You girls are mad!"

"Oh sod off!" Clare shouted back. "Who cares what he thinks?" She swung herself around the lamppost and Liam, apparently convinced, jumped up to join her. Laughing, they started to do their samba steps with only Clare's left hand on the lamppost for balance.

"Jesus Christ, they're going to crack their heads open!"

"Leave them be- oh!" Her foot slipped and she wobbled and Tom's face contorted into pure fear and, as the oldest, sanest, and soberest of the four, he demanded she come back down. "No, no, I have to finish the dare," she insisted in a slurred sentence. She wasn't quite drunk, but she was definitely tipsy and he told her so. He said he'd wrestle her down if he had to. "Is that a threat? I might enjoy it."`

They make a run for- the quay on the north side, find a bench that can't be seen from the street, revel in their completed public mischief, their small but successful act of civil disobedience, _we didn't get caught but if we had- you could have gotten us out, couldn't you Liam? _ Liam is the law, they decided. Tom should write it up for tomorrow's paper. _Yes! _ People love crime blotters. The_ manhunt- the womanhunt- for a pair of daft girls dancing atop Grattan Bridge. Anyone with any information as to their identities should contact a Mr. L. Branson, Important Government Figure_ for a swift resolution of justice. They had a good laugh about it, but before long Clare and Liam were kissing their faces off and while Sybil would never do that in public, even if was dark and secluded with only seagulls around to gawk, she was pushing her hand into Tom's in a way that told him it was time to make an exit. They left Clare and Liam, who were a short walk from Clare's, and hailed a taxi-cab back to his mother's.

It was pitch black in between the streetlights of north Dublin, which were fewer and farther between, and dark in the cab where the driver's stare stayed fixed ahead of him. Tom tried to watch the road too, but Sybil, full of impatience and desire, was up to her own private mischief in the backseat.

"_Darling_..." He shifted, crossed his legs, and leaned into her ear. "_Please. _I'm trying to think of anything _but."_

She leaned back, warm breath and carved-out words, into his. "I'm not."

His comeuppance came quickly though, as they closed the front door on the sound of the cab sputtering away, he had her against it, kissing her and almost christening the darkened threshold of his mother's house. Because that was about to happen, her coat and suit jacket pooled around them on the floor, even if their insistence was stymied by the stiff and difficult fabric of her formal dress; he was trying very hard to work around it, to not snag it or loose the stitching until she said, or rather breathed, "_I don't care if you rip it I hate it_" and never, _never_, not even in his wildest, most frustrated, most agonized fantasies had he ever fathomed Sybil Crawley telling him to tear off her clothes. It was only knocking into the rubber rainboots, sending the line of them down with a loud thud, and the fear that they would be intruded upon by an awakened Mrs. Branson, that stopped them and sent them, sensibly, to the bedroom. "Come," Sybil said, taking his hand and leading him upstairs.

It was a painstaking prospect, those thirteen steps; Sybil took them one at a time, pausing at every creak with fear of a confrontation with her future mother-in-law as to why she was pulling her son up to her bed. Tom supposed he should tell her it wouldn't be the first time his mother caught him. But he just kissed their clasped hands, her curve of her neck, smoothed the sides of her dress. The bedroom door was shut and locked, clothes divested, him tumbled down on top of her. "May I?" She nodded. "I promise I'll marry you," he joked.

"Yes, you'd better," she grinned and let him in.


	71. Chapter 71: Early June 20, 1919

_ thanks as always! _

* * *

><p><strong>Early June 20, 1919<strong>

__"Do you love me?" __

__"Yes." She kissed him, barely, before he pulled back. "Very."__

__"Say it." __The most subversive request he could make of her, in this context or any other, that she say it plain- and not to others, but to him, to confess herself; her people did not do that, her people held on to their power, _if you want to why Ireland's been conquered so long but I can't look at you and not say it, _how else would they have wound up here?

_"Please..." Be with me, not just as we are now because anyone can be so (anyones everywhere are now under roofs and covers) but be with me as only we two can be... us...__ and no one else...__ "Please."_

_Yes,_ she acceded without words first. _Look at me_ he had asked in Liverpool and its causality had been imprinted on her. It couldn't happen any other way. She raised her hand to his face when his eyes closed- _"Don't"_- and when they re-opened at her command, they were swept up in the awe, the alchemy, and he saw there was no more to find, no more to unravel, she had surrendered her secrecy to him, as quivering and exposed as that _real beating heart_ she had once seen on the operating table and his own confession surges_- _he _can't, _damn his slave-heart blood... "__Oh Sybil, I-___"_

_"I do love you so..." _A shibboleth, whispered in the dark, for their shared expectation, far more sophisticated than that white afternoon where she had blinked at the bleached-out sky and the birds and waited and wondered what she was waiting for, but Tom had been sure and Tom thought it was beautiful and she wanted to be beautiful for him. And now, she looked to him and he to her, and they were at once beautiful to each other.

The cool sheet fluttered onto their damp skin.

_"I think," she said, the words settled on a sigh, "that I am terribly in love."_

* * *

><p>He settled in the sliver of space between her and the wall, boyishly abashed at her enraptured stare that followed his every move and how she awaited him, to pull her close, kiss her hair, whisper to her until they fell asleep. His Sybil in love<em>.<em> And with him, thank God, for all the time when that was not a fait accompli. The words were unnecessary but he wished them to be always lovers, companions, friends who spoke their minds and hearts. She was so loving- how she had survived so many years in the cold remoteness of that house, he did not know except that it must have been so brutally lonely, especially for her.

He folded the pillow behind him. "Come to me," he said, arms opened. But she came instead for another kiss and stayed, exultant, until they had to break away to breathe.

"Practice_ does_ make perfect," she exhaled, as she settled her head on his chest; this was how they liked to sleep, they had found. "You were quite right when you said so in Howth."

So much had been discovered since Howth, _only three weeks ago_. "Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?"

"It _all_ does, Tom. It all does." Howth. _Here. What a day. _The conversation with Mary, the reversal of roles, with her the wise one of them. How could she explain it- any of it- to her sisters? The half-crown. Aileen's secret. Doors that don't have handles.

And of course, _this_. The ecstatic relief of blood- _thank God, thank God- _after Liverpool and how easily it had been muted and pushed to the back of her mind, how love won over reason, over caution. Mary had vaguely warned her of that but she didn't _know _just how unmatched prudence was. Mary would disown her if she knew how Sybil had breached their mores- _just one more time_ had become many more times, _just once in this bed and then no more until we're in our own home_ had evolved to _never without you_, folded into each other, arms and knees, hushed adjustments the alarm clock under the pillow so Tom could sneak back downstairs before his mother awoke. She traced the definition on his arm as he reached back for the clock now, the sheet twisted around his waist; she bit her thumbnail as it pulled away. No, Mary and Edith could not possibly understand. They had never been here or felt this.

She lolled her head on his shoulder. "Are you sorry we didn't wait?" she wondered, as he set the dial for a quarter to five. "Now that's it here."

He looked at her as if she were daft. "Uh, _no_."

She was pleased by that- how could she not be? she did take great pride in her abilities as a student- but persisted, "I'm afraid I haven't much to offer you on the honeymoon."

"That's alright," he said. She handed him his discarded undershirt; he wrapped the clock in it (to muffle the alarm), stuffed in behind the pillow and reclaimed her on his chest. "I might have saved a trick or two." Her eyebrow shot up; his did the same. _Don't even ask_, he told her with a laugh. _You're incorrigible_, he declared when she demanded details. _ I might be incorrigible, _she countered, now on his lap with her hands even on his shoulders, _but you love me so what does that make you?_ In their fun, their voices had risen- _m__y mother your mother- _ as they shushed each other with hands and mouths. "Go to sleep," he ordered, turning over and taking her in the undertow. "I'll put you to bed."

"Like you promised to wrestle me off the bridge?" He was over her now and it was quite clear how terribly nicely this would end. "If I didn't know better, I'd say..."

"What would you say, clever girl?"

She just smiled. "That you want to pin me down."

"No," he said with a humble shake of his head, "I've no desire to pin you down." Not his free spirit_. _All those restraints were in the past for them now. He cradled her adored face. "Though I so do love to see you look up at me. Even if Rebecca Halloran might tell you to slap me for saying so."

_Oh no_, love was the opposite of oppression_- love is the way out, _how we become unbound; this was a fact, this she _knew._ "I can be free"- was she thinking of that as well?- "and be yours." That last word like flint, and then fire- "You can make me yours, Tom"- bold in its uncertainty even more than its expression, she had said it even when she was not sure she should because she _wanted._

And he did, and she was.

* * *

><p>Tom was dead tired after a day of work and getting testy with Callahan, <em>th<em>_at anti-Republican arse_ wanting him to lean on Sybil's American people, which he would not (and hadn't even mentioned to her, nor his boss' not-so-subtle insinuation that he wanted him to work Sunday, the morning after his wedding, on account of de Valera- oh, Sybil would take _that_ real well), her sisters' arrival, _the damn car,_ the heart-to-heart with his brother, too many drinks and tomfoolery, and then two rounds of... _and_ _Mass a__t six_, just three hours from now. _Jesus_. But Sybil was wide awake, a hand curled under her face, which had turned pensive. He could fathom why, though he wished they didn't have to talk about it now. "What is it, love?"

Her initial silence confirmed his suspicion- there was only one question which feared an answer- and after a minute, she spoke. "Was it like this, with the others?"

At this moment, he was sure, an iteration of this conversation- is this love and are you true? can I believe in what I feel?- was being had by anyones everywhere under covers. Theirs would end better than most, because it was; but that didn't mean it wouldn't be a bit uncomfortable. He had always known his easy escape in the bathtub in Liverpool, when it first came up, was her inexperience, her unfamiliarity with intimacy, _she didn't quite know what she was asking; _and now that her question- and his answer- were fully translated, she did not like the truth that someone else had lain where she was now, in the arms of her husband. But it was the truth, and it had to be reckoned with.

He smiled at her. "No."

She did not smile back- not because she didn't believe him, but she didn't want to be told what she wanted to hear. _Not even Kathleen_? she probed. No, not even her. _Why_? She asked. _How could that be_? because she didn't see how there could be any other way _to _love someone, especially for _years _and thusly many more of these occasions than she and he had shared. _It was just different_. "Because," he said, "I've never loved anyone like this."

Her face troubled, as it used to when she could not find the words, and she would not look at him. "But..."

"But what?" he coaxed her to continue; he would rather they have a difficult discussion together than she wallow in her doubt alone. Besides, their lot did not hold fast and dear to ignorance. "I can't answer what you haven't asked."

"Did you do what we do?"

Well. _Yes_- but it was all very rudimentary and clumsy; in the early days, they had to be home before dark. But he couldn't say they hadn't or Katy hadn't had her pleasure with them, with the additional point, "How else would I have known how?"

She absorbed all this behind a masque of indifference, the one the Crawleys assumed for all unwelcome developments. She wasn't quite jealous, but she felt none of the magnanimity she'd had earlier for the years he'd spent in Yorkshire before her with no one to dance with or kiss; she was not happy to think he'd practiced with someone else. Yes, it _was_ irrational, but love wasn't rational and in this moment, she hated that he had.

"And did you and she-" she finally articulated, an act of masochism but she would not cower from it- "together?"

Her braced tone was belied by the hope in her eyes and he took her hand, a soft touch for a hard truth. "I wish I could tell you no..."

_Of course. _She had nothing to say to that, but she didn't take her hand back. "Well, I wouldn't want you to lie."

"I wouldn't lie." She nodded without concession. "I wouldn't lie," he repeated with the same; he would explain, but not plead. "It _is _different. And you're the only woman I've ever loved."

Her hand slipped coolly from his and to sweep her hair from her face, an obvious passive epee; did she think he did not know her so well? "I suppose just don't see how you can be lovers with someone you don't love," she mused aloud. "I just don't understand how that's _possible_."

"As I said," he said, a reminder that he had been honest with her from the outset, "at sixteen, you see people-"

"I was an adolescent too once, Tom," she interrupted. "I'm not immune to that, but I could _never_ act on it."

"Fine, then," he started without judgment, but to re-frame the issue, "I suppose you're just a better person than me."

"I _don't_ think that."

He knew she didn't- but morality _was _the issue, if there were truly an issue which he doubted. It was simply that he'd lived in a world less gracious than her own, and she would have to reconcile that with the life they now shared. "So what _do_ you think, then?"

"I just-" As Tom had predicted, she could not make a rationale of what was an emotional reflex about her most radically powerful and intimate experience, inextricably tied to her first love, the man she would marry and be with forever. "I don't like to think of you with anyone else." You can't really, he said, not accurately, reiterating that it was not at all the same. But it wasn't all different either, she returned. "And I'm a Crawley. We don't share."

"You aren't," he assured her. He and Kathleen- they shared a place and a time, the streets they lived on, the people they knew and their problems, the _poverty_- he remembered acutely what a relief it was to both of them to pass an hour or two when the next meal and landlord's notice wouldn't come up- the banal cruelty of their respective Catholic schoolteachers, the alternate annoyance with and concern for their parents, their little brothers and sisters. "That's what we shared. You really needn't feel put out by it."

And Sybil did feel less so, once she heard how- well, _childish_ it was. She had also huffed about her sisters and her governess- though not to a man she was in a sexual relationship with (when she was sixteen, she still wore her down, tied with a bow)- but she also didn't have the stress or the opportunity; while Clare, who was still an adolescent (as she was not yet twenty-one and a proper adult in law) alluded in a worldly way to a conversation they had not had. She did have more to learn about the world, she conceded to Tom. "And even if I don't- _understand_- that doesn't mean it isn't. It wasn't."

If it helped, he told her, he and Kathleen practiced- for the most part, except for a few mistakes- the oldest and crudest form of contraception. "I knew _soldiers _did that..." she remarked, failing to sound tolerant.

"It's not all soldiers," he said. "Nor prostitutes, either. It's just- _people._" If she didn't believe him, she could believe Rebecca's pamphlets- Sinn Fein's public health advocate (ironically, a doctor named Kathleen) was currently on a crusade to stop the rampant spread of sexual diseases. "It's only to say, it's not always love."

She regarded him, frank eyes under dark lashes. "It is for me."

He wouldn't plead for the past and she wouldn't plead for her heart's discernment. "I wouldn't want it any other way." He placed a light kiss on her lips. "And I hope to keep it so."

They settled back into their sleeping position and Sybil let him pull her close, kiss her hair and whisper the difference to her until she was placated and looked up at him again. "I bet she was in love with you."

"That's very kind."

"I mean, women are often dishonest about that."

"That's less so," he chuckled, as he straightened the sheet around them. And it came back to him: this bed after school in the hour before his mother returned from work. "_The history of all hitherto existing society, Kay, is the history of class struggles..."_ She ought to read Marx, he told her (and maybe then she'd be able to make some sufficiently intelligent conversation since the nuns' education, by design, left her unable to discuss anything interesting). _Some pillow talk_ he used to make in those days! Looking back, he wondered if Kathleen actually cared about all his books and ideas she used to ask about. "She liked to listen to me talk. That's a powerful thing for a lad."

"_Just_ a lad?" she teased.

"She didn't give me the cheek you do-" he tweaked her chin- "but I love you for it."

It brought back for Sybil an echo of the cottage, after the confrontation with her family- _t__here's no part of you I wouldn't love because it is you- _the relief that came from taking shelter in someone _who__ keeps your secrets and takes your side always _and what she saw was not the water-stained wall, but the faces of her sisters as she turned to leave the room: she was at peace and they were not and that was the delineation between them. "Be kind to Mary and Edith, even when they are snobby," she said. "They don't have what we have."

He said that he would. "I'll have to wash these bedclothes after church tomorrow," as she planned to spent her last unmarried night with her sisters at the hotel, "though God knows where I'll find the time." She was meeting Edith at eleven to run some last-minute wedding errands, check on the cake and the restaurant where the reception would be held, before they all met up at the new flat for tea. He offered to take care of it, but she declined with an unconvinced shake of her head.

"You don't trust me with the laundry?"

She threw him a look. "I don't trust you not to leave it for your mother," she said. "I don't want her to find out what we've been up to in her house." She shuddered at the prospect of _that _conversation with her mother-in-law in the bride's room at the church.

"_I'll_ do it," he promised. "I can do it Saturday morning- I don't have to be at the church until four."

"It _starts_ at four" and he should be there no later than three-fifteen. Or perhaps three. Or two-thirty. "There could be paperwork- oh, I don't know, Tom, I've never been married before and neither have you! Just be there," she concluded.

_As if wild horses could keep me away. _But he teased, "So this is like it's like to have a wife?"

"Arriving at important events on time?"

"I will be there no later than three," he dutifully replied, "with the bedsheets washed and folded." He stroked her arm. "I will miss you terribly tomorrow night. "

She smiled. "You'll be too drunk to miss me, if Liam has his way."

He slid down and tucked his head into the honeysuckle-scented pillow. "I always miss you._"_

She consoled him with an Eskimo kiss. "After tomorrow, you'll never have to."

"I'm counting on it," he replied. "And on that note, goodnight."

* * *

><p>In a room on the other side of the city, Mary was awake. The early departure, the long journey, and the lavish dinner had afforded her a few hours of deadened sleep, but in the wee hours, as they so often did these days, despair's deft fingers pulled her back to life. She never felt quite well anymore, not since the funeral, when Sybil had walked off into the metaphorical sunset with Branson- <em>another intersection<em>, she thought- leaving a vanquished Papa in an actual graveyard; and she and Richard had slinked off, after Matthew had vanquished her. She swallowed, with some difficulty, and rubbed at her throat _d__amn this dank Irish climate_ where her voice should be.

_"It really is so wonderful, Mary. " _

Would it ever be wonderful with Richard? _Could _it be?

There were, not one, not two, but three messages from him, the last of which was a telephone call to the hotel. He only wanted to know if she arrived safely and she could not credibly say why that should irritate her as it did. _Matthew wouldn't care if the ferry capsized. _She wished she could believe that; and she knew that it was the hope,_ the hope_, that would weaken her and hobble her happiness. She had to kill it. She had to snuff it out. _I am sorry Sybil, but I can't be hopeful._ It would be the end of her.

Sybil would be here tomorrow, perhaps her presence would chase away the doubt, like an amulet. If nothing else, she had her sister. The Greeks believed there was no stronger bond in the world than blood. Married people don't share that. Even children are only half-breeds to their mother, to their father. But she and Sybil were the same; she was her sister and her sister was her. The Greeks would never choose a spouse over a sibling- _Perseus and Andromeda be damned- _the Greeks would say the Gods had favored her when they apportioned the fates. Wasn't _that _a funny thought!

Nonetheless, she would try to feel favored, at least for the weekend; who knew when she would see Sybil again?

She rose, went to the writing desk and scribbled the contents of a telegram she would have the hotel send tomorrow to the Countess of Grantham. "Arrived safely and uneventfully. Am pleased to report our darling looks very well and happy-" she paused, her pen to her mouth, before deciding to add- "as does Tom. That's all for now. More to come soon." She added a sparse conclusion, set down the pen and picked up the telephone. "This Lady Mary Crawley. I'm aware of the late hour, but I have a rather urgent request for the morning," she explained to the hotel concierge. "I must make a change to the motorcar that was arranged..."

* * *

><p>In a room on the other side of the suite, Edith was also awake, seated with her knees tucked under her on the floor in front of the French doors in her wrapper, the belt of which had loosed and come undone, taking in the ambient movement of the city which was never truly at rest, never completely dark or silent.<p>

_I wonder what is out there... _

_S_he leaned her head against the panes and smiled.


	72. Chapter 72: June 20, 1919 Part I

_ thanks as always! _

_a quiet morning before the wedding action. FYI, The flashback in here is from the time of Chpt 11. A longer about that in comments.  
><em>

_up next: Sybil's conversation with the priest leads to a revelation and surprises for Edith and Clare._

* * *

><p><strong>June 20, 1919<strong>

It was still dark outside and in the narrow bedroom at 4:45am when the alarm leaped into action and hit Tom in the face. He startled awake to find Sybil asleep on most of the pillow and him slid off onto the shirt-encased clock. _Ow. _He rubbed his cheek. _Right on the bone_.

Sybil rolled over and blinked drowsily at him. "Ah, so you are up."

"Hardly."

He told her how he had come to be, with an unexpected hook to his left eye. "Of course, if you hadn't commandeered the pillow-"

"Oh, please. Did you really use to box?" Her retort was interrupted by a yawn. "I don't believe you."

"You'll believe it when I start again." There was a gymnasium near the newspaper offices, he said, used by Royal constables. "I'll keep my ears open," and even if it didn't result in any scoop about Dublin Castle, "I can sharpen up a bit." He flexed his arm and frowned: _softer_, not much but some; same with his stomach. Too much drink, less work _and_ _no labor_. He couldn't say why it bothered him- he certainly didn't subscribe to brawn over brains- but it did. Typewriter keys, it turned out, weren't much of a workout.

She perked up. "Can I come watch?"

"Why?"

"To cheer you on!"

He laughed at her misconception. "It's not prize-fighting, love. Just hitting a bag. Maybe a friendly spar once in awhile. Nothing bloody."

"Oh. _Good_." She was curious to see this unknown part of his life, but that would end with the first punch, thrown or received. "I suppose it's not very feminine of me, since we're supposed to send you all into battle and all that, but I like that you're a pacifist," she told him to which he smiled. There was self-possession in pacifism and she admired that; it was the harder choice. "And I like that you have all your teeth."

"I ought to be after _you_ about that," he replied, with a stern poke of her shoulder, "what with your penchant for candy." She was sneaky about it, but there was always a treat in her pocket after dinner (or breakfast), for the walk or the tram ride, so much so that sometimes before they'd kiss, he'd ask _what flavor? _ Lemon drops, peppermints, chocolates, caramels... "_It is butterscotch? I won't kiss you if it's been butterscotch._" Well, until the time she had smoked afterward. That had tasted like a smooth whiskey by a hearth fire. "But now," he reluctantly said, "I have to get myself downstairs before Mam wakes up."

But Sybil draped her arms about his neck. "One kiss."

"What flavor?" he teased.

It was warm under the sheet and warmer under him. "Just me."

"My favorite."

They kissed and it tickled; his scruffy cheeks chased the smooth skin under her chin and her ear and on her chest until she raised her palms to them. "Your face feels like sand in the bed."

"Unpleasant?"

"I can't decide," she hemmed- nay, purred. The fact that they were both so easily stirred in the mornings could have dire consequences for his career and hers too, once she started her job. "It could be pleasantly unpleasant."

"If that's a dare, I accept." They could revisit _that_ on Sunday. "But for now-" He tried to ease out, but still she resisted. "Love, I _have_ to- my mother's five minutes from walking in on us naked as the day we were born."

"We've five minutes then," she returned. _Our last five minutes of recklessness_. After this, they'd be just any old married couple. Five years since that first surreptitious hand-hold and now there were only five more minutes to hide. As hard as it had been (and as much as she wanted what was to come), she mourned it. Neither of them were natural conformists and their secret friendship, then secret love was interwoven into their identity; indeed, it had been her entire adult life. A part of her was reluctant to surrender what was special only to them. "Will it be different, do you think, once we are married?"

"It'll be easier," Tom answered, untroubled. _ Men, _she thought. So literal, even the poetic ones. "And more comfortable," he said with a hand to his cricked neck, "that's for sure."

She told him to turn round and she would rub his shoulders; she'd done that sometimes for patients, to circulate the blood and prevent scar tissue. But it was always very clinical and she never noticed then, as she did now, the lure of skin, the space between his head and his shoulders where she could kiss and none of them smelled like Tom, or had hair that yielded in her hands like Tom's- _"my darling Tom"-_ she missed him already and he was still in the bed with her .

It upset her that they would sleep apart tonight, upset her belief that they've been married since the day that train pulled out of Downton station and tomorrow was just belated paperwork. To believe otherwise would diminish this and the past five weeks.

But Tom, a literal man with an eye on the time and desire to avoid an awkward confrontation with his mother, appeased her with the blithe advice to dream about it, as if it were a calendar concern, no more complex than the eve before Christmas. "And when you wake up, it will be tomorrow," he said with a valedictory kiss. And with that, he got up and started to pick up the clothes strewn on the floor.

It wasn't that he didn't understand, but he couldn't wait to have it done, finalized, official, _legitimized_. They saw secrecy differently: for Sybil, it was a power, to protect and preserve him, _us, _to choose her own husband; for him, it was a constant reminder that he could not court or marry her properly- openly, in her own community, with the love support of her parents. _Good riddance. _

"Did you used to?"

"What?"

"Dream about it." She handed him back his undershirt. "Us, I mean."

"Oh, darlin'..." No "_g_" here, not when they were like this. He pulled the shirt over his head and grinned. "Did I!"

Sybil received this news as she had Erich's opium, with barely-concealed enthusiasm. "You naughty boy..." She sat straight up now as he retrieved a pair of pajama pants from the dresser. "So you did think about seducing me!"

"Of course I _thought _about it." He could be honest with her about that now- she'd withstood the truth about Kathleen, and surely this truth was preferable to that. "But only sometimes and I did feel bad about it." _Somewhat_. "And truth be told," he added with a wink, "it was mostly _you_ seducing _me_."

She liked that very much. "So I was _not_ so good at hiding my feelings then?"

"You could say that," he chuckled.

"Tell me," she asked and then added seductively, "Maybe I can make it come true."

"There was the time I saw you come out of the stables..." he casually said as he went for the door.

"Yes?"

"That's all we have time for," he teased. "Ask me another time."

"Come back," Sybil pleaded, arms outstretched. "One more. You won't be able to kiss me like this until the honeymoon." He supposed that by _like this_ she meant herself, undressed, under only one thin sheet that was threadbare in places; on that, he supposed she had a point. She knew it too. "Think of all the times you _dreamed_ of this..."

Tom stopped, dropped his clothes in a heap, took her face in his hands and then her breath, a forceful kiss that dwindled to a sweet, somnolent survey; one last kiss for secret lovers in their last secret space.

* * *

><p>As he left her room, he remembered how it almost ended terribly for them.<p>

The stables. He'd thrown that out because it was the most subversive. But it wasn't a _good_ dream- none of them were really, just other manifestations of fear. But that was a truth he would keep to himself.

He saw her come out of the stables on a Saturday afternoon in March, the third year of the War. It was an awful time, when he lived his own death as he prepared himself for prison. _The sky looked like rain, _like his heart, about to burst and break and pour. It had rained earlier. She'd worked the overnight shift and he went to fetch her at the hospital. She came out the back door and his heart ran out to her, as it always did, and he realized it could be the last time as she was presently mad at him and walking, even in the rain.

"I didn't call for you," she told him rudely; the rain was beating so hard on the back-door overhang that she nearly had to shout. "I have boots."

"Well, I've come for you so..."

She acquiesced without a word then or the whole ride home; before he'd even taken his hand off the brake, she was out the door and disappeared into the monstrous house. Their mutual anger should have made it easier; should have, but didn't.

And when the sky cleared, there she was with her unmistakable stride, black riding skirt swinging in the wind. _She never rides anymore_. He waited until she reappeared on her wildly expensive jet-black horse. _Only the best here at the big grand house. _The horse trotted amiably until the house was out of view, when she kicked him swiftly and vanished.

He was left in the dust to stare.

His tasks (coincidentally) took him past the stables more than once, more than twice, until the fourth casual pass-by found her with her helmet off, splattered with mud, skin pinked and enlivened. God, he wanted to be in her life, if she'd only let him; he did not know he could want so much. He couldn't take his eyes away from her. It could be the last time. _She must ride very fast _and he wanted to know why. For the thrill? Escape- rather, the _illusion _of escape? He wondered if there would come a time, in a cold cell alone, when he would reach enlightenment and realize she was just an escapist fantasy for him, a shiny preoccupation in a dull place. Because how else would he have survived year two, three of this rote job if not by counting her footsteps on the gravel, all the failed words between the ones that made her smile, the days around these serendipities?

She stroked the horse's head as he ate the apple she offered and smiled- the first time in awhile she hasn't looked entirely pissed off about it all, whatever it was- but it was a private sentiment, not for him. And it hurt. She could have at least had the decency to turn him down, to release him from her hold. But no, she lorded it over him (_for someone who champions equality, she sure has made an art of tryanny_) condemned him even, sometimes (_not with words, never words with her_), for the ripple he's put in these placid waters. _As if that's what _she_ wants_- placidity- _sorry my love is such a cross for you to bear. No, I'm not sorry_. What would she say to _that_, in the shouted silences between them?

Rain, then thunder that wouldn't let him sleep. The mud on her neck under her collar, where he would dare to tread, disheveled hair, _if you'd only love me_, he'd eat out of her hand too; it was pathetic but not inside the stables (which now suspiciously resembled the one barn he'd been in), up in the loft (like the one in the barn), with no one around, just the _ping-ping_ of the rain on the roof. The real rain is worsening the water stain on the cottage wall. He had no idea if hay was soft, but it was now, soft with a honeyed scent, like her, in the stables he's never been in with a loft and no horses, no staff, no one but them and their words and their furious, unstoppable love. _Let's run away now Tom, before it's too late_. If she'd only say that. If she only loved him. If she'd only let him. So he let himself, since he was quite certain she would not write to him in prison and he would never see her again except in his dreams: "_Sybil, Sybil, don't leave me. Don't let me leave you. We belong together. You know that, don't you?_"

Tom closed his eyes on his mam's sofa, Sybil upstairs above him, quite happy to leave the past in the past and embrace the future tomorrow.

* * *

><p>Sybil heard Tom hurry downstairs- <em>so much for being quiet<em>- and laid her head for the last time on that awful pillow:

"_And what about your people, would they accept me?"_

The little uncomfortable bed, five weeks in the Branson home in revolutionary Dublin, where she'd done her own laundry and dishes, had cooked (albeit badly) and cleaned, handled her own money, taken the tram, danced in halls and on the sidewalk and even over the Liffey. She had won over Aileen and Liam (and Frank would be easy, Tom said) and established, at least, a detente with Tom's mother. She'd started work on their own home and planned their wedding. She'd even made two friends, Erich and Clare, both of whom would be in attendance tomorrow.

Most importantly, she'd become a lover, and then a better lover, to Tom and she'd tried to be a valued partner for him and to help him know better how to be a partner for her. They would mark Liverpool, but here in his old room had been where they'd truly discovered each other. They had talked- about their values, his work, her assimilation, their separate and shared ambitions- on a scale so much greater than that of the small world in which they previously existed. He had come up and sat beside her faithfully every night, so she would never be alone here. The most important lesson of all: no matter what was in the future, they would face it together.

It had only been five weeks. "A little more than half the time I spent in York," she realized out loud, _but you can do a lot with your time if you set your mind to it. _

_Good. _Because they planned to.

* * *

><p>On the other side of the other bedroom door, Mrs. Branson waited, arms crossed, for stillness. She'd heard the latch of the door, the creak of the stairs, the rustle of movement in the parlor. The clock showed two minutes to five. She needed to heat the iron and if she started a minute past five, they'd be late for Mass. At the stroke of the hour, she proceeded loudly to the stairs, with a pause to thump on Sybil's door: "Five o'clock! Rise and shine!"<p>

She went down to where Tom pretended to be asleep- _awful liar, always was_- and bemusedly played her part. "Rise and shine, Tommy." He moaned and mumbled and made a real show of it. "Get yourself up son," his mother coaxed. "I've an idea for you. For your confession."

He opened an eye- he knew from her tone he was done in, and her face confirmed it. But she couldn't help smile at him- her only blond child and no one knew who it came from. His father was pure black Irish; his father who had never loved her as much as she did him and eventually, she'd come to hate him for it, for her poor choice and her poor children. "What's that?"

"Do you want me to speak it?" He shook his head vehemently; yes, he was 28-years-old, but she was still his mother. "Good. We'll keep it between us and the Lord." She started for the kitchen.

"Ma?" Tom called after her. She turned back. "Please don't tell Sybil. She'd be horribly embarrassed."

"The two of you- a pair of fools," his mother muttered. But she came over to where he sat on the sofa, folding the blanket, and put her hands jovially on his shoulders. "Don't you want to know what I plan to confess?"

"I don't know," Tom looked back at her with amusement. "Do I?"

She kissed the top of his head- _my sweet Tommy, always so very good_- and out of her vision, Tom couldn't help cock an eyebrow because his mother was hardly one to emote, except perhaps over the arrival of an English aristocrat into her home. But she surprised him now.

"I have to confess that I'm happy you've found someone to love," she said, "someone who loves you equally. And that's the only wife I'd want for you."

It was a difficult admission and he appreciated it before he shifted the tone back to more comfortable turf for them both with a look. "That's a damn near endorsement of my English fiancee." She shook her head, relieved as well. "Aye, it is so and our ancestors will smite you for it." He laughed. "God help you, Ma, explaining your brood of half-English grandbabies!"

"It will be a brood, with the way you two carry on!" she retorted. "Honestly, Tommy- do you never sleep? Now, hurry up or we'll be late and you can tell your _lady _the same. This isn't the manor house- here, we get up when we're called."

He started up the stairs. "Yes, Mam."

"And no foolery!"

He stopped and turned back with a grin- "No promises"- and went to fetch Sybil.


	73. Chapter 73: Confession Part I

_ thanks so much as always for the kind reviews!  
><em>

_A/N at bottom re: one of the historical mentions in this chpt. And to the reader who asked about Richard - I think he's a fascinating character but I planned this story to be in canon through the first part of S3. hope to have Part II up soon! _

* * *

><p><strong>June 20, 1919<strong>

Friday, their last day as an unmarried couple, went by in a blur. It was busy and eventful and on top of that, they'd done it all on very little sleep.

They weren't the only ones.

Maybe that was the reason for the short-fuses and rampant emotions that wreaked havoc on their social circle in the run-up to the wedding which involved, in no particular order: a stolen car, a public break-up, a secret tryst, and the arrest of the first elected female Member of Parliament.

Meanwhile, Ireland's future was about to be made or broken at Versailles.

As an addendum, Alcock and Brown had successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a single day. The plane crash landed in Galway, but miraculously no one was hurt.

Upon reflection, in their bed with (of course) Sunday's paper strewn around their waists, Tom would turn to his new wife and quip, "Not the worst metaphor for this weekend, is it?"

* * *

><p>At 5:20am on Friday, Liam turned up in a taxi-cab and yesterday's suit, and his mother exhorted him to <em>hurry up and change<em>. Tom and Sybil sat like wilted flowers in their Sunday best on the sofa, forced to endure Mrs. Branson's well-rested and cheerful attempts at conversation. Sybil noticed _she's unusually spirited toward me today- _her almost mother-in-law had even paid her a (somewhat backhanded) compliment about her "unique" necklace, a costume piece she'd picked up at an artist's stall by the Liffey- but was too tired to examine why.

A few minutes later, Liam came back down in a different suit with the want of coffee or, short of that, morphine. "Aren't you a wicked lot?" Mrs. Branson half-teased them all. "Won't be able to hold your heads up at Mass after all your _carousing _last night." She looked directly at Tom whose ears turned hot, but her inquisition shifted to Liam. "And where did _you _sleep, may I ask?"

"Eamon has an office by the Four Courts." It was true that his former classmate Eamon, now a lawyer, kept an office by the courts. It was also true that Liam had been with Clare, a fact which all of them, not least of all his mother, were aware.

"God help me with all of you!" She pretended to be put upon, even threw her hands up, but Mrs. Branson was an excellent mood. Her adored son was about to be married and she marked today, when Tom would make his confession (which he needed to do in order to receive Communion tomorrow a_nd as his bride was a Protestant but nevermind that_ his Communion was necessary for a sacrament), as the start of his wedding. Mother of the Groom was a sacred honor and she intended to honor it. It was too rare around here to have both the occasion and opportunity to celebrate and she wanted the whole family (yes, Sybil too) to savor it.

At 5:30am, just as the city started to wake, they set off into the pale blue dawn towards St. Michael's church.

* * *

><p>For all three Bransons, and the one soon to be, their thoughts outpaced them on the walk to the church.<p>

The last time Sybil had envisioned her own nuptials, she had been about a meter tall and Edith had played her husband. The ceremony had taken place at Westminister (naturally) admist the swirl of the first snowfall, while the celebration had been in midsummer under a white tent on the front lawn (transportation between locations and seasons had not proved an issue at the time). Papa and Mama had been there, Granny and Carson too; and of course, she and her new, unspecified husband would live in her room at her beloved home, which she never planned to leave.

_Funny, life._

Richard had told Mary _the sky's the limit _for their wedding- two weeks of parties, a tour around the world- and despite tradition, he would contribute as much of his own money as needed to make sure she had the affair she wanted. What she _wanted _of course was to marry the man she loved, but that wasn't a problem Richard could solve with pound-notes, though Sybil was sure he'd try.

Richard, like Tom but for different reasons, had little use for his future wife's relatively modest portion- _I am _not _an heiress, _Mary said, _as he so oft seeks to remind me_- and had offered to underwrite their new life entirely, which had _highly _offended the Earl. Mary had relayed the incident to Sybil with a crack that Tom was not the only unwelcome husband at home, before she assured Sybil, "_You and Branson can always come and stay at Haxby," _which was very nice but also exposed how desperate Mary was not to be abandoned to her new husband at his heaving, dreadful estate. _No_, her sisters surely did not have what they had.

But the unintended consequence of Richard Carlisle's present absence in Ireland this weekend was to make Sybil appreciate their own homemade but heartfelt affair. It would be humble- today's ostentation was to have sweet buns from the bakery after Mass; a special breakfast for a special occasion. Their reception- dinner for a dozen at a modestly-priced restaurant- _was_ lavish for here and paid for out of her father's endowment. Mrs. Branson's contribution would be to host an open house after Mass next Sunday so that family friends could meet her son's new bride.

She was the first of the Earl's children to marry and it would be marked in a faded Dublin parlor with Jacob's cream crackers served on chipped plates.

It made Mama weep to think about, her sisters had told her. _Oh, she cries over everything, _Sybil had replied. This was _my__ wedding day_ and she felt very protective of it, as well as the efforts and expenditures of her future family, who worked and had little to spare. Besides, she really didn't need to be pitied by a woman whose own husband had barred her from her daughter's wedding. _Mama can keep her tears _and Sybil would keep her wild, runaway love.

* * *

><p>Tom met the day with renewed purpose. The rebuke from his brother- "<em>Get over it<em>"- had been a much-needed boot in the arse. Sybil had been so wonderful- _remarkably, incredibly_ wonderful in how she'd rolled with the adjustments (and occasional prejudice) in this radically new world. All the qualities he loved in her- her spirit, her tolerance, how she met and triumphed over difficulty- shined; his faith in her had been vindicated a thousand-fold. _Jesus_ she'd spent last night in a rebel cafe where half the conversations were no doubt about how much the British were hated. If the situations had been reversed, he would not have suffered a ballroom full of anti-Irish aristos so well. He would not have struck up a conversation with the British equivalent of Rebecca Halloran and tried to find common interest. Sometimes Sybil made it look so easy even he could be fooled to think it was.

This is exactly what her father wanted: to cleave the detail of their different experiences, so much so that it would supplant _what it comes down to; _he wanted them to doubt that _us_ could ever be. Sybil had called out his motives from the start: _he means to ruin it for us. _Well, he could only ruin it if they let him and Tom was determined he would not.

He had once, many years ago, promised to devote every minute to her happiness. It was a promise made with the utmost sincerity, but nonetheless one that could only be made at a distance. Such a promise couldn't be kept in a _real _relationship and- more importantly- a relationship of _equals_; she was not a marble statue and he was not a slave. A couple made of flesh and blood was bound to clash and two people with as much passion and sense-of-self as they each possessed would not be so easily subverted, even to the person they loved most. But that was over a lifetime. For the next three days, it was a promise he could make and keep.

He stole a glance at his quiet fiancee, but was unable to tell if she was pensive or just tired. _I must talk to Lady Mary,_ he resolved, _and recruit her to the cause._ And then to Sybil he said, out of the blue, "It wouldn't be the worst idea."

She was startled out of her thoughts. "What?"

"Lift some morphine from the hospital to keep in the house," he continued. "You could turn it into a side-job. Be a pirate like Clare."

She cocked her head at him. "I can be a pirate who thieves and peddles opiates out of our home?" Tom didn't flirt with the underworld, not even in jest. She was the one with the wicked sense of humor- Granny could call it _vulgar_ (all credit and blame to Britain's officers)- and it didn't fail her now. "I suppose I can't be too shocked," she replied with a twinkle in her eye, "as I did decide to marry a revolutionary."

"A socialist, a _Republican_ socialist, thank you very much," he replied which made her laugh. He really did love to see her smile; he'd talk forever, say whatever, to buoy it. "I should probably tell you that I've made a bet that I can keep that smile up all weekend."

She heard her Mama's words of caution- "_You are, in many ways, putting your life in this man's hands. Are you quite sure you can trust him with your life?"- _as she accepted the arm he offered her to walk with him. "Oh darling," she said, her voice uncharacteristically soft, "you should know by now I'd never bet against you."

* * *

><p>Mrs. Branson had watched as Tom took Sybil's hand as she descended the front steps and it struck her that <em>he must have done that all the time for her as her driver.<em> And one time, they must have been shocked by the electricity that passed between them, that first bite of love that made them different to each other than to everyone else in the whole world. That bit, she supposed, was the same for _all _people.

She had reached a state of acceptance with Tom's choice of a wife. The Catholic ceremony had done much to appease her and not just for expected cultural reasons. It meant their children would be baptized into the faith of their father (Sybil had had to consent to this) and this would be Tom's protection if they ever wound up in court. The Crawleys had wealth and influence, but not as much as Rome; and there were powerful advocates in Ireland who would never allow Catholic children to be taken and raised in a Protestant home.

Mrs. Branson was quite sure that Sybil's father, if he knew, would have swum here to stop her or at least sway her to a civil ceremony, which would position her better _if._ Of course, the children were in love and certain it would turn out as happily as they hoped, but it was her job as a mother to make sure her son's interests would be protected in case it did not.

She didn't doubt that Sybil loved her son- she knew she did, from all she'd seen (and heard)- or that Sybil truly believed she would be content in a small city flat as a lower middle-class wife. But the odds were not in their favour. The stories were notorious and they always ended the same: the fever of love would abate and reality remained.

But as she felt she had prepared for the worst, she tried now to hope for the best and she was determined to do whatever she could to help the newlyweds succeed. That was the role of the mothers and with Sybil's own mother out of the picture, she would have to shepherd them both and help them adjust to domestic life; full time cohabitation with a member of the opposite sex, even a beloved one, could be _quite _a shock. She herself had been completely bewildered by the moods and the emotional and physical needs of her husband; she had never been _responsible_ for anyone before and often felt like a failure in her own home.

Tom and Sybil would have a somewhat easier start- they were uncanny sometimes, like twins, in how they could talk across the table or the room without a word between them. And certainly Lady Sybil was wiser about the bedroom than she had been and Tom wasn't aloof like his father. Tom was like her: reliable, practical, responsible; he was a man who would be _at home_ at home, same as Frank. Her husband had trouble with intimacy- oh, he was loved by everyone, the mayor of Good Times, with a joke and a story for every unknown at the pub, but he couldn't bear to face his own family, their demands and disappointments. He had missed Tom's seventh birthday, waylaid "_helping a man fix a bicycle, Jesus will you fault me for that as well?" _but of course somehow in his Good Samaritan mission he'd misspent the money he was supposed to use to buy his son a present. Even early on, he never liked to be alone with her (not that they'd had much privacy- they lived with his parents in a two-room tenement flat, with a sheet hung round the bed), but their relations were always wordless and he escaped as quickly as possible to cook breakfast or run out. Even now, she could feel the sting of his rejection, her distrust of the older women who tried to reassure her_ that's just how men are._

Not all men, but she had found that out too late. Many years later, in a brief affair when Tom and Liam still lived at home; neither of them were aware of it. It had taken place when they were at school and it was the only time she had ever experienced the fulfillment of another person that her son and his lady seemed to find nightly with each other. There was a time when all she yearned for in the world was for someone to sit up and whisper with her, to tell her it would all be fine; that Sybil was so well loved and cared for was a credit to her son and some confirmation that it all came around in some way, however mysterious, and none of it had been in vain.

* * *

><p>"Clare didn't make it, eh?" Tom asked his brother; she had the late shift at the boarding house and so had said she might come up with Liam for Mass and breakfast.<p>

"Clare can't leave the house until she's sat an hour in front of the mirror- at least," Liam quipped, but it was warmly and affectionately said. Indeed, his favorite moments with Clare where in her room, when her Da was at work, as she was getting ready to go out- him reclined on the bed and Clare at her vanity (a broken kitchen table her father had sawed in half and painted for her), as she mused over her choice of accessories: _what about this color? _she'd ask with a ribbon aloft and a coy turn of her head. _And h__ow should I wear my hair? _

She was wild and terrifically fun, with her posters of American film stars, her lock-box where she kept her cash and more valuable contraband (she kept the key in the hollowed-out heel of her boot- "_I'm not paranoid, but I'm not stupid_" she explained to Liam; the cobbler had said she was "_real clever_"), her passion for all that was not politics. Sometimes his mind needed the break. And fortunately for him, it came in fair form- cream skin and peridot eyes, country athleticism (her mother had been raised on a farm in Cork)- she and her six sisters all looked the same. '_My Da's curse as he calls it,_' Clare had told him and he could tell the first time he'd shaken hands with her father how many times he had endured this ritual and didn't pay Liam any particular mind.

There were times when Liam wondered if that was Clare's perspective as well.

But alone, cuddled up in the dark, it never felt like that. Both were born at the end of their broods into poor homes and so had always shared a bed. Once Sybil and Tom were married and in their own flat, his mother would expect him home more often; he could still use the excuse of Eamon's, but not six days a week. He remarked as much to Tom, who shot him a stern older-brother look. "What?"

"Don't '_what_' me," Tom said. "You know exactly what to do to spend more time with her- to spend _all _your time with her. Until, I don't know... death do you part?"

Sybil's ears perked and she entered the conversation. "What's this? Are you next, Liam?"

"I'm the last"- no one had much hope for Keiran, the most like their father of all of them-"so I'd be next even if it didn't happen for a thousand years."

Sybil was unfazed. "I'd like a sister-in-law here in Dublin. That would be a nice present."

"Oh, well in that case..." Liam feigned. "What about your sisters?" He wanted to turn the topic before his mother became involved; he'd _never_ hear the end of it.

"You'll meet them tomorrow for sure," Sybil answer, "and hopefully my sister Edith tonight. It's too bad Clare has to work and can't come out to the pub to toast Tom."

Mrs. Branson cut in with the preemptive admonishment, "You'd better not let one drop of liquor pass your lips after midnight. I mean that." Tom promised he wouldn't and explained to Sybil he was supposed to fast until Communion tomorrow.

Sybil made a face and when she had the chance, pulled Tom aside. "I don't want you to not eat. The ceremony's not until four and we won't sit down to dinner until at least five-thirty. I don't want you to be dozy," she said. "When you promise your eternal love to me, I'd like you to maybe be conscious of it."

"I've done it before," he told her. "It is God's law."

"You'd rather cross Him than your wife, trust me."

Tom burst out laughing. "Yes, dear. Whatever you want."

His soon-to-be wife lifted a brow in victory. "Amen to that."

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire<strong>

An hour before His Lordship's wake-up call, there was a knock at their bedroom door. It was O'Brien, already dressed, who hurried to Cora's side. "I'm sorry, my Lady, but I knew you'd want this as soon as it came."

Cora sat up as soon as she saw what it was- "a telegram from Ireland!"- and thanked O'Brien, who made a hasty exit followed by a frown from Robert, both for the disruption of his sleep and for the disruption "the situation" was causing in his house; need it be aggravated so early in the day? _And tomorrow will be impossible._ Cora tore it open and devoured the few sparse lines, unsatisfied; a book would not satisfy her interest in her girls and how they were getting on and she admitted as much to her husband. He composed his question carefully. "How are Mary and Edith?"

"They're fine." Her tone warned him; she had stood by him, at an irreplaceable personal cost, but a mother could only tolerate so much. "Very well, it seems, on their own in the city."

"And the accommodations? It was all in order, I assume."

"Mary doesn't say it wasn't."

Robert nodded. "Good."

"Sybil is well too," his wife added pointedly.

It took all his self-control to refrain from comment- _that depends on who you ask_, walk into any of the London houses and it was a very different, tawdry story- but he was determined to hold to his own stated standard: _she does not care to be a part of this house or this family anymore _and he would abide her wishes. But Cora pressed. "I know how much the rumors have hurt you, but you can't fault her for other people's imaginations."

"I _don't_ fault her for that." _Her own conduct is quite enough; _it had inspired the talk, true or false. He was about to lose his patience; it was time to dress. "Give my love to Mary and Edith."

"And Sybil?" Robert was silent. "Surely you can't mean to punish her forever?" Cora's voice was small and terrified. His hand paused on the doorknob. "You did think at one time you could at least be amicable with them."

_Them. _Her husband flinched visibly; it had been a mistake for Cora to invoke the chauffeur in what had almost become a moment of weakness for him. "That was paternal sentiment," he replied, hardened. "But it was naïve. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to start my day."

* * *

><p><em>AN: there were high profile cases in Ireland, including during the 1913 lockout, of the Church intervening to "save" Catholic children who were being relocated to Protestant homes (though it would be different if the home was with the children's mother). but the Crown courts in Ireland were pretty notoriously corrupt and full of lackeys gunning for a better position (why it was important for Sinn Fein to establish its own justice system), so her fear wasn't unfounded_


	74. Chapter 74: The Confession Part II

St. Michael's was a palatial, Godly stone structure in a part of the city from where, it seemed, God had turned His head. It was dark and solemn inside, the early Mass sparsely attended. It occurred to Sybil as they walked int that _this is where we will be married, it will be in our record, in our Bibles passed down in our family._

_Our family-_hers and Tom's. _Not his people or mine, but a new family, a new Branson family, _she realized, _and we will be at the top of that line. _It had never struck her quite that way, the enormity of what they were about to do, all the people yet to be born whose names would follow theirs. Her hand found Tom's as they made their way down the aisle.

Tom felt Sybil's touch, uncharacteristically small in his palm _and rough, _with her fingers netted in new, cheap cotton; he smiled at her, but her profile was half hidden by her hat and she didn't catch it. _Tomorrow everyone will smile at her _no matter who she was born or where she was from and it made him so happy- a happiness he could have never really understood before, the warmth of someone else's sun. His bride whose hand, for whatever reason, just needed his now. _We're alright _he assured her with a squeeze. _Yes, we are alright _she answered back in their soundless conversation. Tomorrow everyone would smile at her, share in her beauty and sweetness, but he got her small and rough parts too, all of her as she had all of him, and it was the contrast, the _all of it at once _that made his breath catch, in that way that the mountains and the sea are both nice but set against each other they are stunning.

_Tomorrow we'll walk down a different aisle- _that of the smal chapel in the cellar, where they had decided to move the ceremony, which had only six rows of pews _so Sybil won't feel a stranger at her own wedding. _The chapel was done in bright white limestone, with one statue of Mary off to the side (no life-sized and blooded crucified Jesus to shock their Protestant guests) and candelit. _"What do you think, do you like it?" _Sybil had turned and asked him hopefully. An intimate, dreamy space, cast with shadows and fire, free of artifice and hidden from view. _"Yes, I love it, it's perfect._"

His mind now alternately flitted between the trivial- what would her dress look like, what kind of veil would she wear?- and the eternal, what her expression would be that first moment when the door opened (he had bet her five quid she'd cry before he did, which was bound to make her five quid richer), how the words of his vow would feel as he said them, if he would truly be able to realize all he felt in his heart. He feared it would happen too fast; in the end, it would be one hour in their lives, less than the time it had taken to drive her to York. But Sybil didn't fear the imperfect- that was _his _small part- and if she knew, she'd say _Oh Tom, it's only life, _love it like a child for what it is and don't dwell on what it isn't, meet it _with a calm and can-do manner _and enjoy it. _You'll only get once chance to make me your wife._

Tom awaited tomorrow as he had no other day in his life.

* * *

><p>Sybil found a seat up front while the Bransons stood in line for the confession boxes. The parishioners around her (almost exclusively elderly women with weathered faces at the early Mass) thumbed their Rosary beads and bent their heads and occasionally, sent a blessed nod in the direction of Mrs. Branson with her two fine sons at her side. Neither Tom nor Liam believed in this church stuff, the obsession with sin and sinners, but they faked it better than she did. Church was mostly a public duty for the Crawleys. When she had made her confirmation, people had stood on the sidewalks and waved their handkerchiefs; they would do it for Mary and Edith if they married in the family church. <em>Why? What did they care? <em> From her new reality here, her old life seemed even more ridiculous.

The Bransons returned and it was Liam's turn to rib her because the priest, by some Catholic calculation that she couldn't make heads or tails of, had issued more penitentiary prayers to Tom- "_Just what _have _you two been up to?"_ he teased. "_Tom might not be finished by tomorrow"- _which prompted Tom to tell Liam he'd better keep his eye off the toothsome Miss McLean with her crucifix so pertly propped in between her breasts that even Sybil had noticed (how could anyone not? That ploy was the same everywhere). Mrs. Bransons shushed them- "_worse than children, the lot of you"- _but when she saw her two boys on their knees in the church where all four of them had been baptized and _Tom about to be married tomorrow, _she could not stop a smile. Her maternal sentiment even extended to Sybil, as she helped her find her place in the hymnal and told her not to pay any attention when the whole church went up for Communion and stared and speculated as she stayed in her seat.

The Mass was dull, in incomprehensible Latin, droned by an ancient white-haired priest with the more youthful Father Fahey behind him. Per usual, this Mass seemed to end about five times before it actually did. _And another full Mass tomorrow. _ Her sisters would be in revolt.

Finally- _finally- _the priest reached the De Profundis, which was the real, actual conclusion of the Irish Catholic Mass (and well ater the one Latin phrase Tom had told her she had to learn: _"Ite, misse est- Go, the Mass is ended"_); but the De Profundis was different. The De Profundis was the psalm for Ireland, said only in Ireland (so the Irish claimed); even Tom and Liam, who mumbled from memory all the other prayers, straightened their shoulders as they repeated the appeal of their father and forefathers:

_From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord;  
>Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive<br>to the voice of my supplication.  
>If you, Lord, were to mark iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand?<br>For with you is forgiveness; and because of your law, I stood by you, Lord.  
>My soul has stood by his word.<br>My soul has hoped in the Lord.  
>From the morning watch, even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.<br>For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.  
>And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.<em>

Sybil had a copy of the words, but felt it more respectful to remain silent than to let them fall fraudulently from the lips of the _Lady Sybil Crawley_, daughter of the Right Honorable Earl of Grantham, for _if the Lord were to mark iniquities_... it would be like Communion where everyone would stand but her, who has never been made to cry out and certainly not in supplication.

_Edith and Mary._

They couldn't end the Mass with this tomorrow. She could not force her sisters to stand silent in a room where everyone around them- indeed, the family to which they had just ostensibly been joined- prayed for deliverance from the British. _That would make for a fine start to the reception, _she rued. _And if Papa ever found out... _

But her ruminations were interrupted as the old priest looked out on his weary flock and decided to stand silent no more:

"Let the leaders of the world who convene now in the stated pursuit of _peace _hear Ireland's plea for peace!" he croaked, his worn voice battened by emotion. "Let _them_ see how she has answered the sword with the word in her ballot. Let _them _redeem Ireland from her iniquities," his voice thundered as he drew to a close with one of Ireland's most famous lines, "and take her place among the nations of the earth!"

For a second, the parishioners were struck dumb; then the priest's petition reverberated through the pews in short bursts of nervous hope: _"What does it mean?"- "A signal from the Vatican?"- "If the English heard that, they'd drop a bomb on us"- "They're like to do anyway"- "Don't say that, it has to change sometime." _But the hope in the Branson row was unbridled, as Tom turned to his brother. "Am I daft or did a Catholic priest just endorse the free, secular Irish state?"

"I just heard him invoke the immortal words of Robert Emmet, _the Protestant traitor_!" Liam exclaimed. "And at a Mass, no less!"

_Extraordinary, _the brothers marvelled. _Absolutely extraordinary. _The Mass now over, the old priest precariously descended the altar with Father Fahey's assistance. As he passed their row, Sybil saw his brow was damp and he was shaking, innervated in defiance of his settled bones and papery skin, and _grinning; _an old soul had been reborn.

Mrs. Branson turned to her sons, her own excitement only moderately more restrained than theirs. "Well! What do you make of that scene?"

"I was about to ask you! Did St. Michaels' become a rebel's nest while I was away?" Tom chuckled. "But you seem as surprised as I am."

"I can't wait to tell Rebecca," Liam said. "She won't believe it, she'll think I'm putting her on!" He noted that Sybil's face lit up at the mention of Rebecca's name. "You _do_ have a crush," he laughed.

"So what?" She put her arm around Tom and smiled between the two brothers. "It seems if there were ever a time to be in love with an Irish republican, it's now."

"It might be. You just saw history made, love." The Bransons waxed more on the significance of the church (potentially) siding with the nationalists, whose elected leaders' vision of Free Ireland was secular and socialistic. _Freedom is Ireland's true faith_, as Liam put it, _has been for ages. _Tom agreed and suggested to Liam that Sinn Fein reprint the speech.

"The priest's?"

"No- _Emmet's_ speech. Or at least steal the last line for your next post campaign."

"But everyone knows it."

"That's the power of it," Tom said. His little brother was brilliant, but he could be analytical to the point of dense. "It's the Gospel of Irish independence- it has moral force, it's our history." Emmet had delivered it on the eve of his execution, after a show trial which had sentenced him to death at just twenty-five years old. "He wasn't a traitor- I mean, that's what the Crown called him," Tom explained to Sybil. They cut off his head for teason, tossed it into the street and shouted "_This is the head of the traitor, Robert Emmet!_" to show the Irish people just _whose _country they were in. "When _we _say it, it's an honorific."

"Aye, it is," Liam affirmed."

"Da used to do it for us, the speech, do you remember?" he asked in a peculiar, almost tentative way, as one might see if a wound still stung, and in that moment Sybil hated their father- whoever he was, wherever he was, that he could still reach Tom. "You probably don't- you were only three or four."

"I remember- he did it well, didn't he?" Tom nodded. "Yes, I remember," Liam answered in a tone more wishful than truthful. But their mother was there, so Tom carefully turned the conversation back to the great elusive dream of Ireland, only.

* * *

><p>Sybil saw Father Fahey come back into the church and excused herself, with Mrs. Branson's smile of approval on her. Father Fahey had seen Sybil alone in the pew- when the rest of them went for confession, went up for Communion- and offered to say a prayer with her after Mass, as he did not want the bride to be left out of the spiritual preparations for her own wedding. It was a nice thought if unnecessary and, to be truthful, not really wanted; she was not pious and her rare entreaties to God were private ones. But she didn't want to snub him and Mrs. Branson wanted her to say yes, so she did.<p>

She had prayed exactly three times in her adult life: once for Matthew (and Isobel and Mary), once for the soul of Lieutentant Courtenay and for Thomas and herself, if God had meant to use them as His instruments to save his life, which they had failed to do:

"_Do you believe in God, Thomas?" she asked him once under a blue sky behind the hospital._

"_God doesn't believe in me," he replied._

_She turned to him. "That's not true. I don't believe that."_

"_I do," he said with a twisted smile. "But only sometimes." _He told her Lieutenant Courtenay's church had refused to bury a person who died by his own hand and she would never forget his face as he repeated the reason. _"It's not natural," he said, "and it's not Christian." _She had no more use for churches after that.

And she had prayed for Tom.

The one time she might have, as the psalm said, cried out, from her depths, to the Lord: _Please not to war or prison. If to war, please let him live. If he is not to live, please take him mercifully, with minimal pain and not alone, knowing he will not be forgotten and never by me,_ incanted to the rhythm of her own steps as she made the rounds between the beds of half-dead men. He had not become one of them and he was about to become her husband, which she did thank God for. _But the iniquity, ever more iniquity... _She made a mental note to remember Thomas and his poor Edward tomorrow and say a prayer for them.

Father Fahey was in the appointed spot: the east transcept, in front of a dedication to the Holy Family. His hands were folded in front of him as he stared up reverently. Sybil came and knelt down beside him. "Hello, Father."

He answered with a smile and directed her attention upward for, she supposed, contemplation. _Easy for him. _Father Fahey was no doubt the sort whose mind never drifted in church. She did not know what to see in Mary, Joseph (_whatever become of him in the Bible?_), and the infant Jesus; with their marble, featureless faces they could be any family. _Perhaps that's the idea. But what is the point?_ Sybil's thoughts wandered... _did Father Fahey, _only about forty with handsome features and a full, dark head of hair, _ever wish he had chosen another life? _But he looked at peace now.

"It's quite a miracle, isn't it?" he finally spoke. "We don't think so because it's common, but the creation of a family is divine. That's why it's a sacrament."

"Not in my church." _Ah. _She hadn't meant for it to come out like that and certainly not _now. _ But the priest didn't seem affronted.

"You've decided not to convert then?" The Father kept his tone soft and his eyes fixed on the Holy Family, as he posited that was fine for now, but would it not be harder once there were children?

It would undoubtedly, Sybil concurred. "But I don't want to whitewash it. I don't want us to pretend that it wasn't hard." For them, _even church is hard, _even a psalm divisive. "It won't be easy- it _isn't_ easy- but we'll want our children to know what it was _for." _They hadn't discussed it particularly (Tom never wanted her to convert), but she knew she spoke now for them both. "Will our children love their mother any less because I'm a Protestant? I don't believe so." In his periphery, Father Fahey watched as Sybil folded and refolded her hands, felt the frustration of a soul forbidden to talk back. "My family thinks I'm a baby and Tom's a fool about the world. But we're not. We know what the world's about," she continued. "But it's not what _we're _about. We value love above difference. And we are proud to live that by example."

Father Fahey absorbed this with a neutral nod and then he said, "I have often wondered what I would I have advised Joseph to do? Or if I were an innkeeper in Bethlehem, what would I have made of their story, this man and his betrothed with a baby on the way? Would there have been at my inn for them? For the first time, he turned his face to her. "I don't mean to draw comparison-"

"No, Father," Sybil smiled. "I should think we'd come off very badly compared to Joseph and the Holy Mother."

"But even they had to live in the world they lived in," he went on. "God, in His infinite wisdom, had his son born in a stable. He did not provide them a bed. He did not relieve Mary of her labor pains. But he did give them each other." Sybil raised her eyes- the Holy Family's white faces metamorphosed before her to become distressed, streaked with dirt, and then _resilient. _"You've chosen the harder road," Father Fahey continued. "Trust in God and remember, when it is hard, that not even the Holy Mother and Joseph knew the whole of God's plan for their family." He bowed his head. "Let us pray," he said and she should do so in her own faith and tradition.

"Father?"

"Yes, child?"

"What should I pray for?"

He considered a moment and then answered, "The courage to live your choice."


	75. Chapter 75: The Confession Part III

_thanks very much for the reviews!_

* * *

><p>They walked back to the house in two pairs, Tom with his mother on his arm in front, with Sybil and Liam behind them. "Did you do as I told you?" Mrs. Branson asked her son.<p>

Tom returned a sheepish smile. "I might have told Father that I didn't, uh, return your hospitality as decently as I should have."

"Not that. My other advice." Mrs. Branson knew Tom did not take confession seriously, but she did not want him to waste a chance to talk with the priest. He had no father on hand and Sybil's father certainly wouldn't sit him down (she had tried to cajole Frank to do it, but he had responded with a blank _for what?_) so she had advised, _s__ay to the priest what you would say to her _(Tom was not interested in Catholicism, but he was eminently interested Sybil) _about what sort of husband you'd hope to be and how to achieve it._

Tom had reflected on that (though not with the priest- _what does he know about husbands and wives_?). "I did think on my faults. I need to be less hard-"

"Hard? You're not hard in the least!" Mrs. Branson shot a look back at Sybil, chatting unaware to Liam. "Is that what _she _thinks?" She'd tell Lady Sybil a story or two about hard men.

"Hard_headed, _Mam, if you'd let me finish the word." _Jesus_. His mother had been noticeably kinder to Sybil- even Sybil herself had noticed it- but sometimes it seemed like she would always harbor a reflexive suspicion toward his wife. _So we can look forward to that, _with him in the middle; but for now, he held his peace. "And blunt. I need to check my words."

"She doesn't strike me as the especially sensitive sort," his mother said, mildly contrite.

Tom shook his head. "She's very sensitive. But she doesn't often let it show, not even to me. It's just how she is. I know she's much more upset about her father than she lets on. But I can't push." He recalled clearly, when he had pushed and the masque had slipped, how it felt in his stomach to see her stricken and hurt. Time and maturity had made him see she didn't do it to shut him out, but for self-preservation. "Her family joke that she's fearless, that she doesn't ever cry, but of course that's not true." _Not unlike a certain other woman I know _and it was to that woman that he said, "She hasn't had it as easy as you think. She's had to scratch and claw too. Maybe not to survive, but to _live_."

* * *

><p>Liam and Sybil were talking of how, with the old priest's echoing Robert Emmet's cry that it was time for Ireland <em>to take her place among nations,<em> there would be even more to celebrate at the pub tonight. "Should you really come?" he asked. "Isn't it bad luck for Tom to see the bride?"

"That's just silly superstition."

"You're not superstitious?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a nurse. I believe in science."

"So what does the nurse make of God- science or superstition?" Like Tom, Liam was a natural thinker and teacher- he could play a wonderful professor when the three of them talked- but (she supposed as a result of their different levels of education) Tom was literal and instructive, while Liam was elliptical and Socratic. Her own inferior education made her more comfortable with Tom's version; she was wary of any debate tricks that would make her look dumb when she wasn't. "Or both?"

Sybil would not be outsmarted on this. "Neither. God made them both." Liam grinned at her. "So there." A tram rolled by, noisily- "Did someone call your name? I swear I heard it"- then screeched to a halt a few yards ahead of them as girl with a red beret set fashionably on the side of her head hopped down with a _thank ya_ and a wave to the conductor.

"Clare! What in the world-?"

Clare said a quick hello to Tom and Mrs. Branson, then joined Sybil and Liam in the back. "Did he stop the tram for you?" Liam chuckled with a shake of his head. "They never do that."

"They never do that for _you,_" Clare corrected with a quick kiss to Sybil's cheek. "I just came to wish you luck before tomorrow."

Liam put his hands expectantly on his hips. "What about me?"

"What about you?" Clare retorted airily. "_You're_ not getting married."

He mugged at her- _listen to you! as if you weren't curled up like a kitten on me this morning._ "I like your hat."

"You should, you picked it out. Oh _fine." _Clare stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, which he cleverly turned so that she wound up with his mouth. "Easy, now," she reprimanded playfully. "You didn't _buy_ it for me."

"You didn't have to come all the way across town just to say that," Sybil said, quite touched that she had.

"Liam just told me today about your parents." Clare couldn't believe it. Her own father had wept at all six of her sisters' weddings; he'd sooner cut off a limb than miss hers. "Your mother as well? You speak so fondly of her."

"We are close," Sybil said. "It's my father and I who are at odds, but she does whatever he wants." She did not finish with _I don't blame her, _as she had told Mary, because well, she sort of did.

"I take it from your tone my brother should not expect the same?" Sybil's answer, as Liam expected, was a resolute _no._

"It's funny," Clare mused. "I don't think my mam ever had a cent to her name. She turned it all over to my father. We're so different from our mothers."

"That's an understatement," Sybil said. _If I had to sit around the house idle and listen to my father opine all day, I'd lose my mind_. "But my mother's American. From _Ohio." _Neither Liam nor Clare had any idea what _Ohio_ meant. "Not New York. More like the prairie." Her mother loved those middle American stories, full of useful, self-reliant women. _What she ever saw in our life, I'll never know. _"I rather feel that she _chose_ her limits."

"Oh! Sorry, but since you mentioned New York..." Clare pulled out a small metal tube from her pocketbook with flourish. "Ta-da!" Lipstick- closer to red than the coral shade Clare had on. "You admired it on me, so here's one for yourself. Manhattan is what they call the color- the lady behind the counter said it's for brunettes. Now you have it to wear for tomorrow!"

"At church?" Sybil envisioned the chain-reaction of horrified expressions as her veil was lifted: _Tom._ _His mother. Her sister. The priest._ "I better not. I'm already heathen. If I showed up in red lipstick-"

"For afterward then." Clare winked conspicuously. "Men love it." Liam confirmed this and said it was a mark of a woman who knew how to kiss.

It was funny to Sybil how modern women (and their modern partners) could be so different; she was quite sure Tom would _hate_ it if she painted her face. Certainly she and her sisters were forbidden to wear make-up, even when advertisements started appearing in respectable fashion magazines. "Thanks so much, Clare. I will."

"Now Claree," Liam said, "wait until we tell you what happened at Mass!"

* * *

><p>The faded parlor was warm, filled with laughter and the sweet aroma of breakfast: buttered rolls, thick bacon, dark-roast coffee and, as a special treat from Mrs. Branson, apple cider to toast to the happy couple and then to Ireland. <em>Always to Ireland here<em>, Sybil had noticed. Stuffed but with some time yet before they had to disperse for work, they were taking turns telling stories of Irish yore.

Clare was up now. "So the Lord once vowed that he would make the Irish people '_tame as cats_'-"

"It was the Earl of Clare," Liam piped up.

"- and at the Earl of Clare's public funeral procession, out of the crowd was flung onto his casket... a dead tabby!" Clare finished triumphantly. "There's your cat, m'Lord! It was a ruckus humiliation for the Crown, coppers throwing people up against the wall, searching their pockets for fur!"

"That's the Irish for you," Mrs. Branson boasted. "All they left us was our sense of humor. And where would we be without it?"

"We have a knack for the punchline," Tom complimented. "That's all anyone remembers about_ that _Lord."

"Poor kitty. I hope they had him shipped over. Seems an unjust end for a Dublin cat."

In all of this, Sybil was aware that the _they _was her people and yet, it didn't feel like that. She laughed about the cat as she had at the other stories. She didn't apportion blame. That Lord undoubtedly felt justified in his position and the people were justified in their contempt. Besides, it's not like a dead man could be humiliated_ so what of it_?

Clare pushed herself up. "Come on Sybil, let's leave these lads to their mother and make the tea."

* * *

><p>In the kitchen, she and Clare set to work. It was nice to have another woman around, especially one who was fluent in the customs here and never tempted Mrs. Branson's ire; only now that her suitcases were packed did Sybil realize how ready she was to exhale. "I liked your cat story," Sybil said to Clare as they measured out the tea leaf at the table, "though I was surprised to hear it from you. You always say you're not political."<p>

"Oh, everyone here knows that story and a hundred others." Clare smiled at her. "Even in the days of no potatoes, Irish children could be fattened with yarn."

She rolled her eyes- _more like her- _and Sybil smiled back. "I confess I took you for a secret Loyalist."

Clare's head snapped up in surprise. "Me, a Loyalist? God, no."

"It's just what you said at An Cloch... " _that the English didn't make their father take the drink. That England wasn't responsible for all of Ireland's troubles. _"Not that it matters," Sybil said quickly. "_I'm_ not a Loyalist. It would be rather odd for you to be more pro-British than me."

"Well, I don't believe most of what our side promises about independence," Clare replied as she turned to fill the kettle, "but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have it."

"So you _are_ a republican." Sybil felt- oddly- a victory in that. "Are you a socialist too, like Tom and Liam?"

"I said I believe in independence," Clare clarified, but it was lost on Sybil. "I believe in God too, but I don't expect to see Him in Dublin any time soon."

"You don't think this time is different?"

"You don't know us yet," Clare told her. "We say that _every_ time." Twice already in her own short lifetime. 1913. 1916. Now it's on again. _ It _is_ different now- now Aileen doesn't have a father._ Another man cut down in his youth for _the cause, _martyred for the impossible dream. "The hero Robert Emmet is all well and fine, but I'd rather have my head."

Sybil wanted to ask her more- particularly, if Liam knew how she felt and why, as she did feel this way, she chose to be with an aide for Sinn Fein, a man who devoted himself to a future she believed to be unachievable. "I'm not Irish, obviously, but I do believe wholeheartedly in self-determination," Sybil said. "For women, for the Irish. It's worth fighting for."

"It is worth dying for?" _Dead people don't vote. _

"Well, no one goes out to die," Sybil replied, equally taken aback and intrigued by the weighty discussion. "And to fight is no guarantee that you'll win. But if you won't fight for your own emancipation, what will you fight for? Surely, they believe a life not free is not a real, full life."

_Living people believe that. Dead people don't believe anything. _Clare shook her head, the subject of _poor old Ireland _as palpable an irritant to her as a fly in her face. "Isn't this nice talk before your wedding! We should be on about tomorrow and not this wretched country. We never have a break as it is." At the boarding-house, she met sailors and salesmen from all over- French and Americans, Spaniards, Turks, even two Chinamen once- and none of them obsessed over their the countries like damned Irish did. She took the water off the stove and poured it into the teapot. "Come on then- I'll take this, you carry the cups and we'll go tease Tom about your dress."

* * *

><p>Edith looked out the car window, careful to keep her reaction to herself. "What did you say this area is called?"<p>

"This is the northside, milady," answered the older man with the white halo of hair under his black chauffeur's cap. "Drumconda, to be exact."

"And this is where you're from, Fitz?" His name was Fitzpatrick,_ but everybody calls me Fitz milady _so she did.

"Aye. I am." There was a short, considered pause before he ventured, "May I ask who _you_ know up this way?"

"My sister's fiance. His family is from here." Fitz listened, careful to keep his reaction to himself; he could let it out later in the pub. "Do you know how they met, Fitz?" The reveal would be especially fun with this audience, especially if done so in a tone ripe with promise. Fitz was harmless and she was neither humorless nor a hapless flirt, as her family presumed. "He was our driver, Fitz."

Fitz nearly drove off the road.

* * *

><p>Edith stood in front of the Branson home <em>as Sybil must have <em>walked up to the door _as Sybil must have _held her breath and knocked. An older woman, not un-handsome, answered and sized up with knife-sharp eyes the latest British lady to appear on her doorstep. _Crikey._

But Edith had heard_ all_ about Mrs. Branson and was prepared. "Hello, I'm Edith Crawley," she said as she extended her hand. "You must be Tom's mother. How nice to meet you at last."

This _lady_ was as immaculately dressed as Sybil had been, but thinner and paler with copper curls. They did not look like sisters at all. But this one had a touch of self-consciousness in her manner that, like Sybil's sunniness, contradicted her assumption that all British were cold. "I didn't expect you," Mrs. Branson replied, a reproval to Sybil for the ambush.

"I didn't expect you either," Sybil said defensively, as she stepped in and took her sister's arm, "but I'm glad you're here."

"The more the merrier," Tom added supportively. "Come, sit down."

Two steps and Edith was in the parlor; the house was almost comically small, with six adults squeezed around a sofa, chair, table and curio crammed into the room. It was too hot and smelled heavily of cooking. She was briefly introduced to Clare and Liam, who was _very _handsome if badly mannered; he greeted her with half-wave from the opposite wall. _Carson would hit him over the head with a tray if he saw_, but none of the rest of them seemed to find offense in it.

"I hadn't planned to come," Edith explained, "but I was desperate to know what Tom makes of the news." _News_? "The Countess Markiaviecz has been arrested!"

"_Arrested_?"

Tom jumped to take the newspaper she pulled out; Sybil and Liam read over his shoulders. "Proscription," Tom uttered. Liam's stomach wrenched; _this was how it started_. First this, then- _feck. Feck._

"What's proscription?" Sybil asked warily.

"When the authorities hear about a political speech or rally, they'll tack up one poster, with one sentence that declares it unlawful," Liam told her. "It's then _proscribed. _And because it is, anyone there can be arrested- like an elected MP_._"

"Not just arrested." Tom passed the paper to Liam. "Sentenced to four years hard labor."

"_What_?" Sybil exclaimed. _Four years hard labor? _"How is that-?" But her question was silenced by the resignation on Tom and Liam's faces, the ones that had lit up so at Mass earlier. Sybil turned to her sister and said bitterly, "Be sure to tell Papa how _lenient_ the court was to the first female MP."

Tom was upset, but he didn't want Sybil- who was now asking what hard labor for a woman would entail- to be. He didn't know what the arrest meant, but even if it meant the Crown was about to drop the hammer in Dublin, tomorrow would still be their wedding day. He put his arm around her shoulders. "I'll find out what I can at work. In the meantime-"

Liam, the best man, leaped to help his brother ease his bride's mind. "Don't you worry about the Countess. Do you know how many shootouts she's been in? In fact, she's probably broken out by now."

"You talk like you know her," Edith observed.

Liam's dark blue eyes left her sister and lifted to her. "I work with her."

* * *

><p>Edith stood in Tom's childhood bedroom- a <em>very <em>queer experience for them both_- _and watched as he carried down Sybil's suitcases, white leather stamped with _SPC. _He probably did not know they had been a present from Mama and Papa in advance of her debut. All three of them had received the same present with the same card: _for wherever your life may take you._ Edith doubted _wherever _had included _here._

Once Tom had left, Sybil removed her dress (wrapped up- Edith would have to wait to see). She did not seem to want or need help. Edith put one silken hand to the window frame rubbed bare of its paint and peered out at the huddled houses, the old men, the mothers with babies tied on them. Some small children tossed a ball over rusted wire. A man came out of an outhouse. The air teemed with ash. _Goodness_. She and Sybil used to work for charities that raised money for places like this. "Weren't you terribly homesick?"

The question intruded into Sybil's thoughts, as she folded her veil in tissue paper and laid it on the bed:

_What would you like me to do? _

_Do?_

_Faster? Slower? _

_Mmm... faster, maybe?  
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_Really? You'd like that?_

_Only one way to know._

_Lift your hips a bit and try to meet me. Oh darlin'... how's that?_

_Very nice. Divine. For you? As nice as your dreams?_

_So, _so, _much nicer. The best. What could be better than real? _

_That was also today, _with the Holy Family, Emmet's words in church, and now the Countess in prison. What would happen to Liam? To all of them, if hell broke loose?

"I honestly didn't think much about it," Sybil answered. Edith rolled her eyes- _typical Sybil, she must always appear invulnerable, _even if she had almost cried in the parlor in front of everyone. "I'm ready. Let's go."

* * *

><p>Tom saw them to the car, embarrassed both Edith and the chauffeur when he sent Sybil off with a kiss on the lips, an unconscious intimacy which only showed how fully known they were to each other now. When Tom helped them into the backseat (he had insisted), his hand had accidentally slipped and Sybil hadn't batted a lash. <em>So t<em>_hey _are_ lovers, _Edith realized not sure if she was shocked by this revelation about her sister or not. Either way, _Papa was right._

As the car pulled away Edith asked her, "What was that all about, back in the parlor?"

"What?"

"Don't be like that, Sybil. You know what_." Your tears, a less likely occurrence than snow in the desert. _ "I'm your sister." It was a reminder, a little wounded, because sometimes it felt like Sybil, the sister _she _was closest to even if that favor was not reciprocal, needed to be reminded.

Sybil kept her eyes on her hands, which turned over each other in her lap. "Four _years _hard labor. If that's what they do to the most notorious woman in Ireland, a rich and titled politician who has her picture in _Le Figaro _and_ The New York Times _and all that, what do you think they would do to a nobody?" Edith raised an eyebrow at _they_, but didn't comment. This was not the strident little sister, who wore her defiance like harem pants; this was the Sybil that Edith had seen only once before, at an inn en route to Scotland, when events had slapped her back and unspooled her self-possession. _Sybil when she was afraid._ "It's not some other country anymore," she said quietly.

Edith took her sister's hand and held it all the way back to the hotel.


	76. Chapter 76: Friday, June 20 Part I

_thank you so much as always! I know you're excited for the wedding event- almost there, I promise.  
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* * *

><p>In the car, Sybil tried to do as Tom had advised: put the Countess' arrest to the back of her mind and let the reporter make inquiries <em>it's what I'm paid to do. <em>And of course Liam would pick up details around the Sinn Fein headquarters. She had to deal with the wedding and her sisters were coming to see the new flat this afternoon, which Tom was (unnecessarily) nerve-wracked about; she would have to put on her best face for that, _we can't both be a wreck. _

But more than that, she wanted to concentrate on tomorrow, to preserve some of the peace she felt after her conversation with Father Fahey, to hold her prayer _the courage to live our choice _close in these final hours of preparation; she wanted very much for the ceremony to be sacred, _a covenant between__ ourselves and God_, no matter who was in the audience or who wasn't, who they were or where they were from. _L__ove comes before all that- _love, she believed, came from the soul which was made by God and all souls were equal in the eyes of God. The iniquities came later, from one's so-called fellow-creatures.

Four _years_ hard labor_._

"_They'll have arrested me now..."_

Had she even understood what prison was, the little Lady Sybil who read and reread that line, penned in impeccable Catholic school script, who put the paper in the fire and watched it burn, so worried was she about the consequences of a correspondence that broke the house rules. _That was the first love letter between_ _us_, she realized- a letter about Ireland and England and the terrible chasm of difference.

She stared out the window as the car wound down around the leafy idyll of Phoenix Park- _no shortcuts through Phibsboro from the chauffeur of Lord Grantham's daughters-_ and prayed. _  
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* * *

><p>At the Branson home, Liam took Tom aside in the parlor as Clare and Mrs. Branson cleaned up in the kitchen. Despite what he'd told Sybil, Tom was very disturbed by the sudden imprisonment of the Countess; a brazen and harsh move just before Versailles. <em>True, we don't know the whole story<em> but any story with that end couldn't be good. As for Liam, he and his cohorts had always expected war- Britain couldn't play dead forever- _and in war one must take a side. _"I know it's not the time," Liam prefaced, "but Rebecca meant what she said. She reads your work and she'd love to pluck a hard nationalist from the _Daily."_

"That's self-defeating, isn't it?" Tom retorted wryly. "Wouldn't she rather have a nationalist at_ every_ paper?"

"She sees what's ahead and so do I." Liam lowered his voice. "They've arrested an MP- do you think it will stop there?" _Of course it won't._ "And what do you think your _Daily _editors would do with a suppression order?"

_They'd follow it- of course they would._ Tom wasn't naïve about the fair-weather editors at the _Daily_. De Valera may be a hero in America this weekend, but as soon as the Crown authorities objected, he'd be a _rebel Shinner_ once more. What would he do _if they ordered me to write that_? "We're not under suppression," Tom deflected. "And even if it comes, the answer to suppression of the free press is _not_ a party-controlled newspaper."

"Controlled by _who_? We don't stand over our writers with batons." In normal circumstances, Tom would have a point, but now... "And you're daft if you think _y__our_ paper's not controlled by Dublin Castle." Liam leaned in. "With us, you could be your own editor. We can't pay much, but you could choose your own stories- write what _you_ think the people should know. There's power in that, Tommy."

"And if I choose to write about Sinn Fein's missteps, would they print that in their _Bulletin_?"

"With all that's been done and _unreported_ in Ireland, why would you want to? But sure," Liam said, "you can tell the Irish people how imperfect their_ democratically-elected _leaders are, if you say as well that whatever faults we have, we'd never run the river red with Irish blood."

The allusion to Cromwell and the litany of crimes of _the other side_ was not needed; being his own editor was a very attractive prospect to Tom, professionally if not personally. "I'm not a bachelor like you. I'm about to be head of a household-"

Liam threw his brother a look. "With a rich wife."

"Not _that_ rich."

"'_Not that rich'_?" Liam echoed. "Did you really just say that?"

"Do you see her parents here? That tells you where she stands with them." Tom took a deep breath; he always found money difficult to discuss with people like the Crawleys (yes, even Sybil) or his little brother, who did not understand its direct relationship to labor. For them, money just sort of _appeared _as needed. "Of course her share is plenty for the day-to-day," Tom went on, "but God forbid there's an accident or an illness-"

"Lady Sybil won't ever end up in the poorhouse, Tom. I don't care how mad her father is at her now."

"Money's never free, Liam." _Especially his money._ "He already tried to buy me off once." _What would he do with a situation where I couldn't say no_? "And either way, it's her endowment not mine."

"So ask her," Liam pressed. "She'd support you."

"I don't want to live off a Lord's charity!" Tom shot back. "Under his thumb with my hand in his pocket. And after the way he's treated Sybil?" Christ, it was enough to have worked for him. _Not that Liam would understand that.  
><em>

"I respect your principles, Tommy, as a journalist and as a husband," Liam said unperturbed, "but we aren't always faced with perfect choices."

"We're already living above our means. I'm spending most of my wages on rent as it is." _Because i__t had to be a hot-water flat. It had to be on a wide street in a good neighborhood_. _It had to be the one she wanted. _ "Do you know what she spent on the linens? I don't care, it's her money, but it's more than she'll make in a year as a nurse, I can tell you that." Sybil wasn't fussy, but their life had to meet certain standard- Lady Mary would surely report back- and it was procured with Lord Grantham's money because he alone wasn't able to provide it for her. _ "_I'm a family man. I can't take a job that doesn't pay."

"And if there is a suppression order?" Liam challenged. "More arrests? British tanks in the street? What then?"

"That's then and this is now. Now the _Daily_ is the place for me."

"I hope it doesn't come at the cost of your conscience. As you say, money is never free." Liam put his hand on Tom's shoulder. "We'll leave it, but the offer stands. Don't count it out until you see what happens."

* * *

><p>At the Royal Hibernian Hotel, Mary was on a mission: damage control. Violet had dispatched her to blunt the curiosity of a family acquaintance, the overwrought, nosy Viscountess from Wicklow, who had been fishing about the mystery Irishman who was to be the Crawleys' first son-in-law. "I must tell you, I am shocked- <em>shocked<em>- that your father permitted them to move over." The Viscountess set her spoon down deliberately. "His little Sybil!" _She __hasn't been "little" for ten years and more's the pity in Papa's mind_, Mary thought, annoyed with the woman's presumed familiarity. "We're all going the opposite way! This country is _crawling_ with rebels, even among middle-classes now."

_And not just there_. Mary wondered if the Viscountess would consider Sybil a rebel, or if there were distinctions between rebels and those sympathetic to them. "How awful."

The Viscountess concurred with an adamant nod of her enormous hat. "And where will they live?"

"I don't know the address, but I'm to see it this afternoon." There was a pause, in which the Viscountess appeared to expect an invitation. Mary was almost tempted to extend one,if only for the comedic value.

"In Dublin?" The Viscountess was aghast. "Surely his family have an estate." _But not in Cork_. Mr. Tom Branson was of no relation to the minor family there- she had checked.

"They prefer the city," Mary evaded. "They're young and he's a writer."

"A writer?" The Viscountess narrowed her eyes; if he were famous, surely she would have heard. "And just what does he write?"

Mary parried with a tight smile. "We shall see."

"_Oh_, one of those."_ A gentlemen artist_, who dabbled in bad poetry or seascapes. Perhaps this Tom Branson was not mysterious, just unremarkable. But Lady Mary's laconic answers did not allay her suspicion or the unspeakable whisperings abou_t little Sybil_. "It sounds as if you don't know this man at all," the Viscountess frowned. "I simply cannot believe your father-"

"You're quite mistaken- Papa is the one who introduced them!" Mary cut her off. "He was a constant presence, he went with us to Duneagle the summer before the war... truly, he couldn't have spent more time at Downton if he lived there!" She watched the Viscountess' face contort in embarrassment. _That's for you, Granny_. After all, Tom might be the chauffeur, but _family was family_.

* * *

><p>On the northside, Clare waited at the tram stop. Tom and Liam had already left for work, but since she had the late shift today, she'd stayed to chat with Mrs. Branson, who had somewhat awkwardly asked Clare's opinion on her outfit for tomorrow, as she had not had "dressed up" since the wedding of Aileen's parents in 1913, the year Tom left Ireland. At first Clare didn't understand why she hadn't asked Sybil (she had lived under her roof for five weeks), but then Mrs. Branson had remarked<em> I don't want to look a pauper in front of them.<em> That and Sybil couldn't have done, as Clare did, stuck a needle between her teeth and whipped the frumpy bodice of Mrs. Branson's old dress into shape. _Clare! _The unflappable older woman actually blushed (not without satisfaction) at her reflection. _I'm an old mam, not a young girl like you _which Clare dismissed with the simple truth that she had _a great figure, no shame in showing it off._ So tickled was Mrs. Branson by this female confidence in front of the mirror that Clare took the opportunity to say that after only sons in the house, _you'll be awful glad to gain a daughter tomorrow._

* * *

><p>Clare didn't know how much Mrs. Branson mourned the absence of daughter, and not just in spirit. The lost child between Keiran and Tom, a life which had existed to no one but her and her own mother-in-law, who had assisted her, on the floor with the wash basin run red, for those brief, raw hours when hope collided with reality ahead of its time and, like so many before it here, was extinguished with the sunset.<p>

_It's just queer to recall it today,_ Mrs. Branson thought, as she tied a ribbon on her bridal present for Sybil.

* * *

><p>Clare was contemplating her hairstyle for the wedding- she had purchased a true Japanese silk ribbon (yellow, with red birds and Shinto temples) from a ship purser who'd just returned from the East Asia route, <em>a robber's price <em>at nine quid but nonethless achievable (unlike a ticket to Tokyo)- when she heard a familiar name pass between two girls about her age in front of her:

"You're always going on about Liam Branson," said the first, rather plain in profile and dress. "If you like him so much, why don't you marry him?"

"Maybe I will," her friend replied coyly. This one was not plain _and knows it too, _Clare concluded, _one of them strivers_ decked out in prissy rose-print _as if the Protestants would ever mistake her for one of them. "_I can't help that he's sweet on me." Clare's brow shot up.

"The future Lady Margaret Branson," the plain one mocked. _Margaret _turned and scowled. "What? It's a house of _royalty_ these days or haven't you heard?"

"I've done more than heard," Margaret boasted. "Liam had his mother invite me to their house party next Sunday." This was news to Clare. "Of course he couldn't invite me himself," she asserted quickly, as she toyed with the cross around her neck, "it'd be too obvious as it is a _wedding_ celebration."

Her friend cocked her head skeptically. "Why should that be obvious?"

"It's _plainly_ obvious!" Margaret snapped. She coolly noted that Liam Branson would make an excellent husband _after he quits this politics lark; _he could secure a position at a bank and they could move far out of this hellhole _like Tom and _his_ Lady_.

The friend perked up at the mention of Sybil, a famous and almost mythical persona here; _Tom Branson's fiancee_ was all the talk in the neighborhood. "I saw her once," she relayed excitedly, "buying a newspaper, but she walked away before I could get a good look. Is she very beautiful? I've heard so."

"She's alright." As the prettiest girl in the parish, Margaret could not entertain the attractiveness of any competitor. "She has an _atrocious_ haircut." Her friend remarked that a cousin had also cut her hair short, after it had caught in a loom at work and nearly ripped off her scalp. "I promise you she doesn't do any kind of _factory_ job," Margaret sniffed. Clare's blood started to boil; nothing incensed her more than working-class girls _like this Maggie O'Nobody calling herself Margaret _who turned her nose up at work but was perfectly content to let her poor parents labor for her clothes and tram tickets into town. Clare was about to say so to her face- she'd welcome a scrap with this girl- when the tram rumbled up. They boarded and Clare took the seat behind them.

"I'm sure we'd be the best of friends!" Margaret gushed, using Sybil's celebrity to turn the conversation back to herself. "Perhaps, someday, I'll even be invited to visit the castle!"

Her friend snorted. "I'm sure His Lordship hosts Shinners all the time up there. And wouldn't your Fenian Da drop dead if he heard!"

Margaret waved her off. "Once this revolution's put down, it won't matter. _These _people will be the same as ever, but Liam will have a well-off brother and a sister-in-law with influence."

"Alright, Margaret. You'll marry Liam Branson and I'll be Queen of England."

"He _better_ marry me." The friend whipped her head to Margaret, astonished. So was Clare, who had taken her for the sort to dangle her virtue as cat nip when most girls _like us_ lost it like baby teeth, in the natural course on the way to adulthood. "His mother will make him."

Clare's hands clenched in her lap. _Not if __I kill him first. _

Now, what Margaret had _said _wasn't a lie (the part about his mother she believed to be true; it was well-known Mrs. Branson wanted him settled down) and as for the implication, she was determined she could make it true. Liam Branson had always liked the look of her, but he had not always been related to a Lord.

Clare, however, took the conversation on its face and didn't stop to think that Liam had spent most of his time with her these last few months. Her own temperament (and her own indiscretions) made her think it _was _true, that_ stupid fecking _boy she loved had been hooked by the most venal sort of woman in Dublin. _She thinks Liam cares a damn about money- he hadn't ever written a check before I showed him how to do it!_ He deserved a useless wife_, with a baby halfway between them at the altar._ Liam had been spoiled by Clare, but he'd learn, _oh will he learn. _Clare stood up and marched up to the front of the tram. "Where's the transfer for Harcourt Street?" she asked the conductor. "I'll need you to let me off there."

* * *

><p>North of the river, but south of the Branson home, Sybil and Edith went to pay for the cake. Sybil told Fitz to drive on after he dropped them off; they could take the tram for their errands. Fitz hesitated and looked to Edith. "My lady, I'm not supposed to-"<p>

"When in Rome," Edith deferred to her sister, "or in this case, Dublin. Thank you, Fitz."

"I must thank Mary," Sybil said as the black car blended into traffic. "If you'd shown up in that silver one, you'd have had _quite _a different reception from Mrs. Branson."

Edith laughed. "She's not the friendliest, is she?"

"She's not my friend, she's my mother-in-law. It's entirely different proposition," Sybil said dryly. "But Tom's people are very..." She paused, not wanting to fall into the _them _trap and chose instead to explain with her own experience of the half-crown Tom's paper had paid her. "It's not much, but my God, do you know what I had to do to earn it?"

Edith appreciated the effort, however misplaced. "You know Sybil, they're not the first people I've known who aren't like us." Of course, her sister didn't know about John. _Or his wife_. But Edith knew the price of beer bottles, the taste of sweat on an upper-lip, that the condition of his teeth and breath could not fairly be held as a fault. It was funny really- Branson never handled dirt in _his_ job and was almost as vain in his appearance as Thomas; Edith was the only one who had kissed a man who worked with his hands (not on _motors_) and probably never learned to write or read much beyond his own name.

She had almost become convinced of Tom's normalcy when the small box was set before them and opened- _only two tiers_ and little decoration- and, for the first time, her sister's choice became real for Edith. Sybil could call it "intimate," but the cake revealed the truth: very little had been spent on this wedding and very few would be there to celebrate it. But Sybil showed no disappointment; rather, she praised the baker for his artistry and accepted a batch sample.

"It's caraway cake," Sybil said as she cut it in half. "Very popular here. Mrs. Branson says the seeds are for love and fidelity." It was spicy and aromatic, more savory than sweet. "Tom doesn't like sweets, but I said he was not allowed to refuse a piece of our own wedding cake!"

Edith swallowed. "Tom doesn't like sweets?"

"He says he never acquired the taste for them," Sybil told her. "He didn't grow up with biscuit jars. Or Carson's pockets." Mary was Carson's favorite, but in those interim years when Sybil was the only child left in the house, she was everyone's favorite. _Didn't you already have two today, hmm? _Carson would stare down at the impish face which presumed the answer, because no one ever said no to Sybil- _the story of her life, _Edith mused as Sybil went to settle the bill. As a child, Sybil was just as despotic about her own desires. _Yes, but... I'd really like another _and Carson, unable to resist such honest impudence, would bellow, _Of course! _to the amusement of everyone. _As if that was the way it really works in life._

There was a commotion at the counter and Edith heard her sister ask, in an elevated voice, "We said five, why does the bill say seven and a half?" The baker's wife said it was the delivery cost. "Delivery? Did you think we would eat it in the store?"

Edith went over with the discreet offer of money- it seemed ridiculous to argue over less than three pounds- but Sybil vehemently shook her head; _that's not the point_. "We could always send Fitz to pick it up," Edith proposed. _Fitz? _"The driver. He can come while we're in church."

They walked out with a receipt for five pounds. "They'll probably spit on it," Sybil remarked, "but we weren't cheated and that's worth it. You saved the day." Sybil pulled out a pocket-sized notebook and, balancing it on her knee, made a notation.

"What's that?"

"My accounts book. Tom thinks I'm careless with money- he nearly choked when he saw what I spent to furnish the flat- but I've kept a record of every expenditure and I plan to earn it all back this next year, every cent. However much overtime as it takes, I _will _pay my own way." She slapped the book shut and they walked on to the restaurant where the reception would be held. She had it all planned out- in a year's time, she'd hand Tom two wrapped boxes: one with her receipts and one with her pay stubs. "Won't that be a fine anniversary surprise!"

"It'll be a fine surprise to Papa if you pull it off," Edith remarked.

Sybil's smile dropped, as it always did when their father came up. "God, I'd love it if we could return that money. I'd take Tom to Downton just so he could deliver it personally. But it'll be _many_ years before we'd even come close ."

"It's really Mama's money," Edith reminded her mildly.

"Oh, I know- Papa was clear when he wrote the check that _he _wouldn't do us any favors- and it does make it easier to accept. That and we'd be pretty much destitute now if we didn't." _Most couples wait and save- they don't run off to elope and run off again with a week's notice, _Edith thought. What_ would you and Branson have done if Papa had shut you out? Moved into some tenement slum? _Did Sybil ever even_ think _about that? She doubted it.

Sybil stopped in front of a brick-and-brass place called Flannery's. "Here we are."

"Here?" There was a Guinness advertisement in the window. "Sybil, this is a public house, not a restaurant."

"It's _also_ a restaurant," Sybil informed her. "There's a room with tables on the side." She liked Flannery's. It was warm and well-kept, with lacquered tables, no ash-burns on the cushions, a clean floor; a respectable establishment where men with office jobs could have a drink or two, where a couple could have a decent supper. But Edith wasn't familiar with such discrimination; to the Crawleys, a pub was a pub and pubs were for drunkards not wedding receptions. The pub was open but empty; to the left, there was indeed a frosted-glass door labeled DINING ROOM. Edith hung back and waited while Sybil went up to the bar _the bar with a tap and spirits on the shelves behind it_ to talk to the proprietor. At the end of the conversation, Sybil bought a cigarette off him.

"Mama told us to scold you for that," Edith told her as Sybil smoked at the end of the bar, behind a frosted screen that allowed some privacy between patrons (or in this case for, a woman to smoke unseen, as was the conservative proprietor's preference). "Don't worry, I won't tell." _If I did, I'd have to tell her about _this_. _"What will Mary say?"

"About what?"

"This isn't a restaurant, Sybil."

"Mary will be fine," Sybil asserted breezily. "And if she isn't, she can dine at the hotel. I wouldn't mind. It's enough that she came." _As if that's the only part of the equation that matters- what Mary was willing to do for Sybil. _Finished here, Sybil was excited to show Edith the new flat and for her sisters to spend some quality time with Tom. "We'll take the tram to Trinity and walk from there. There's loads to see- shops, theatres. I'll show you all the places we like. You'll love it," Sybil promised.

It _did _sound exciting and so Edith held her tongue- for now, but not for long.

* * *

><p>At Sinn Fein's Harcourt offices, it was all hustle and bustle with the Ministry of Finance staff as overworked, under-resourced and tireless as ever. At three o'clock, they took their tea-break and as usual, Liam had his at his desk, where he was buried in various projections for the new Irish loan scheme. A bespectacled actuary, another of his university mates, sipped his by window, squinted out the blinds and called back, "Liam, is that your Clare out there?"<p>

Liam ran across the traffic-filled street to her and smiled, albeit perplexed. "Don't you have work? How long have you been here?" She did and it had been about two hours, but she didn't answer. "Why didn't you announce yourself?"

She damn near clocked him. "That's the last you'll hear from _me_, Liam Branson."


	77. Chapter 77: Friday June 20 Part II

_thanks so much as ever! Tom's bachelor party and then the wedding!  
><em>

_I borrowed an event from the S4 canon. _

* * *

><p>It was a perfect Dublin day. Pale blue and cool, with sun-streamers unfurling down the building facades, one of which was theirs. The luminous weather made the trees around Merrit Square appear lusher and greener. <em>It looks as nice as it ever will.<em> _A nice, clean place to live, _Sybil thought as she and Edith waited on the stoop for Mary. She fiddled with her housekeys in the pocket of her coat, pressed her thumb on the cold, flat metal heads. _Metal_ like _medal- _rather a better term, she determined, as it was a mark of _achievement_.

_Whether they see it that way or not. _

At five minutes to four exactly, the black car pulled up in front of Number 51. As she stepped out, Mary conducted a once-over of the immediate area - "Is there always so much traffic?"- that sounded more like criticism than it was. Sybil would expect an appraisal and besides, Mary was here to represent the family; _Lord Grantham's youngest daughter cannot live just anywhere. _But when she saw how thrilled Sybil was to have visitors, to show off the work she'd done to turn the modest flat into a home, _her_ home, Mary knew she would render her approval, rats and all.

Five flights in the dark stairwell filled with a baby's cries and competing smells of stew nearly ruined Mary's goodwill, but just in time Sybil opened the door with a shy, "Here we are."

It was...

_alright, _actually.

It was small ("Oh dear!" Edith yelped as she nearly walked into the kitchen table in the foyer. "Wasn't expecting that!") but clean, _immaculately _so with the fresh air from the windows still circulating the disinfectant scents of lemon and bleach and nary a rodent in sight. The furniture in the parlor- a sofa and chair, a desk, a handsome chestnut bookcase- was new and expensive (_paid for by Papa surely_, Edith observed) and the subtle touches- a soft throw, a street artist's watercolor on the wall- were undoubtedly their sister's. There was even a nod to home in the collection of framed photos on the side table. Mama and Papa, an older woman whom Edith identified as Tom's mother, three of them from 1910 which had come from the library, where Mary had never noticed it. She picked it up now and stared down her vanished self. She was only twenty years old then. _And Sybil still in braids_. "Did you steal this on your way out?"

"No. Mama sent it. I asked her if I could have it." Sybil had her eyes trained on her, like she used to do as a child, as if to deconstruct her brushstroke by brushstroke. It used to flatter Mary to be such a masterpiece to her little sister. But the woman that child had become did not seek to emulate her- quite the opposite, this flat was proof of that- and Mary feared that what her sister had discovered was that underneath all that flourish she was blank. _Had he..._ there was much the same in them, so much so it had once been a threat. _Would Matthew be at home here _with his coat on the rack and the table set for two? Would_ she_, with him? She pushed the question away, set the photo back down. She realized that Sybil would probably never come to Haxby; she was so much farther than few hundred miles away.

* * *

><p>Edith was drawn to the bookshelf, impressively stocked with histories of Greece and Rome, Plato, Mill and Marx (<em>predictable<em>), Burke's criticism of the French Revolution (_unexpected_)_,_ Robert Owen whoever he was _(__a __utopian socialist? G__ood grief), _de Tocqueville's _Democracy in America_, a beautifully bound illustrated book of Celtic myth. There were also a few slim volumes of Irish poetry, as well as the works of staple Irish writers (Wilde, Swift)- _Branson's undoubtedly_, but overall it was an admirably well-rounded collection; and, unlike the books in her father's library, these books were _read, _marked and underlined. Sybil came beside her and said to be sure to put them back in their places_ or I'll hear about it later_ with a dry smile that told Edith she spoke from experience.

"Are these all Tom's?" Sybil nodded, her face full of affection as she traced their spines. Tom had moved over _with a suitcase of clothes and a trunk-full of books_, she said, but Edith wouldn't quibble with his priorities. In their conversations about during her driving lessons, he had shown himself to be well-read. Edith spied a familiar, frayed soft-cover _Sherlock Holmes_ shoved between two better-preserved tomes. "_This_ one's yours."

"Breaks at the hospital were only five minutes," Sybil defended. "I didn't have time for _serious_ books." The "serious" leather-bound book next to it was hers as well. _A book by a nurse. _Edith opened the front cover where her sister had scrawled:

_SPC_

_December 1916 _

Below it, a hand steadier than Sybil's had written:

_June 1919_

_The first book in our first home._

_Everything is possible. _

_Love ever, _

_Tom_

Later, Sybil would tell her that Tom had built the bookcase himself as a surprise and, for the reveal, had placed on it that lone book with the new inscription. And when she did, Edith would see what she had never tried to before: the path of life where none of this- the book, the flat, _love ever- _existed, _what would her other life be_? And Edith would conclude that there was no other _life_, the path of the _not _possible was to be bled to death by the cut of every _couldn't _and _didn't, _far more injurious than a knock on the head at an election count_. _And Edith would be surprised by what she surmised next: _that must be how the Irish see it too. _

* * *

><p>Tom arrived shortly, a bit out of sorts as he was a few minutes late. He excused himself and tacked on an offhanded <em>I'd hoped to beat you here<em> which Lady Mary promptly shut down with a_ that seems unlikely_, _as you said four and it is now quarter after_ as if she'd never been late in her life. Maybe she hadn't; she'd always had chauffeurs who would lose their jobs if she was. Sybil pressed a kiss to his cheek, which embarrassed everyone in the room except her. It was an extremely odd reversal to have Lady Mary in his house not least because he still felt the threat of dismissal, the _forbiddenness_ of Sybil's lips working close to his ear. _Be easy darling, and l__et them get to know you_ was her whispered appeal, _the best of you_.

The tea went... _fine_. Sybil played a perfect hostess, as she had been trained to do, and he watched with equal amusement and discomfit her show-pony performance _h__ad she really had to do this every day at Downton_? She had purchased tea leaf imported from Paris for the occasion-_ "Mariage Freres, Mary's favorite," _a preference her sister shared with Louis XIV and such a luxury that Sybil had refused to show him the receipt ("_I__ only bought enough for one pot Tom, and it's well worth the price to please them_."). It tasted like rose petals and fruit trees and far-off lands and nothing like the bitter black teas he was accustomed to. He said it aloud and was answered with piteous smiles from both his sisters-in-law- what an impoverished life he'd led, to have never drunk 25 pound tea before!- but Mary offered to_ have Mrs. Patmore post a tin for you both_ and Sybil beamed as she had at her father that day in the churchyard, which sealed for him Mary's elevation to the role of patriarch in their lives.

An hour's worth of conversation did include some revelations and unforced moments. Edith's comment that Lady Grantham was now an avid reader of the Manchester _Guardian_, procured by O'Brien, had all the sisters probing him for downstairs information about the tetchy maid, who had (he gathered) for years provided constant fodder for the girls (and their father- who knew _he_ had any sense of humor?), culminating in Edith asking _is she the Boston marriage sort or not_? a euphemism elucidated by none other than his own Sybil who bluntly spelled out _we mean the Boston marriage _bed_ sort?_ She was reprimanded for her dirty mind_, _but neither sister argued when she retorted _oh please,_ _it's what we all want to know_. Unfortunately, he did not know if O'Brien was a lesbian, which ended Mary and Edith's brief interest in him. But he did learn that their mother's devoted maid loathed Mary and Sybil equally and more than Edith, but it was their father she truly hated. Once, when their parents were in the midst of a disagreement, their father had hidden in Mary's room to avoid O'Brien's death stares; the four of them had played several competitive hands of cards until they were caught by their mother, who proceeded to whip them all. They laughed and Tom laughed too to finally hear a story that made Sybil's profession _I love my parents, you don't know them_ make sense. If he were to find himself many years down the road being beaten by his daughters and their mother at whist, he'd be a lucky man indeed. _And that's what this is all for,_ what it had to do with the price of tea from France.

In a moment alone, Tom ventured to ask Mary how she found the place. Her eyes flickered down, then back up. "You don't care what I think."

"Yes, I do." He was surprised- he had not expected Lady Mary to admit defeat_, _much less impotence; but then, their interactions, better and worse, had always been _honest_. "You cared enough for Sybil to be here."

"You think her parents don't care about their own daughter?" He was quick to say that Sybil did not fault their mother and neither did he. Mary did not relent. "You think my father doesn't care?"

_No,_ he thought. _Not__ enough anyway_. But he answered, "I couldn't say. He doesn't speak to me on any subject." Mary pursed her mouth; Branson could look elsewhere for sympathy and if he wanted paternal approval, _he should have looked elsewhere for a wife_. Mary looked at him now, seated across the table- she never really had before. His shoulders and large arms seemed ill-fitted in a dress shirt. He had kept his jacket on, in some erroneous notion of propriety, until Sybil coaxed him that it was acceptable for him to remove it in his own home. That had been queer, to watch her take his coat into their bedroom, him at her heels as if he'd be lost without her. _Maybe he would be. _

He flexed his hands in front of him. He fingernails were neat; in fact, his hands suggested a constancy of character belied by his expressive face, with its crinkling laugh and darkening at the smallest perceived slight. _Sybil was always self-conscious about her hands _ever since a distant relation had remarked loudly during Mary's debut season when the poor darling was in the throes of puberty, that Sybil had _hands for which gloves were made _and she did so hope the rest of her would not prove to be similarly indelicate. Mary had told her to _pay no mind to __ that silly cow_ but Sybil never could; other people's mirrors left lasting impressions.

Branson interrupted her recollection with a suppliant request. "I wonder if I can ask a favor of you."

"You can _ask."_

"Keep her spirits up. I don't want her to dwell on-" _The best of you. _Not her father, not even them. Mary cared about her. _Every waking minute..._ that was his best. "Every bride deserves to be happy."

"You _are_ a dreamer." It was not a compliment. But Tom didn't take offense, just smiled serenely at her cynicism the way an evangelist might a non-believer. The state of her own matrimonial happiness aside, she did not need his pity. Nor was her guardedness about punishing him. "She's our beloved Sybil. Do you think we should make it easy?"

_Ah_. "I suppose people aren't easily parted from their valuables."

"Quite so," Mary confirmed and then, "Sybil says you're clever. Don't prove her wrong." Her face stayed placid, but the words smiled at him- not with affection, but with respect.

It was possible the Lady Mary Crawley did not hate the former chauffeur as much as he presumed.

* * *

><p>The tea went fine, but that didn't mean Tom didn't shoot up from his chair at half-five to escape to a pre-planned dinner with his mother and brothers. "You have another brother in Dublin?" Edith asked. Tom said he had, Frank who was the eldest, married to Maeve with five children.<p>

"Six children," Sybil corrected him.

_Six_ children, Tom amended, but they didn't see much of Frank and Maeve and their six children as that family was very close with Maeve's people. "She's one of thirteen and seven of them, as well as their parents, all live on the same street." He slid a look to Sybil. "So you see, it could be worse."

"For all of us, " Mary added cheerfully. Tom was unruffled; in the wake of their conversation, he accepted her roughness as a test of his worthiness. But Mary's next query, as he went for his coat, was more an inquisition. "Is it unusual that you're one of only four?"

Tom started_- did she mean...? _He turned around to face her. _Yes. She did. _"You're one of three," he returned. "Is it unusual for you?"

Sybil did not like any direction this conversation could be headed. "Mary-"

"No, not with our sort of people," Mary answered without shame. "And yours?" She hushed another protestation from Sybil. "You should take more interest in the answer than me."

Tom donned his hat carefully. _T__he best of you. _And with as much mirth as he could muster, Tom told Lady Mary that _it was said _the Irish were like rabbits. _Sorry, Syb, _but that was the best he could do. Edith let out a hoot and Mary's eyes bulged at his infraction- in mixed company, in _their_ company, in front of Sybil. "Tom, stop it! Mary shouldn't have asked, but you don't have to be crude."

"Me? _We _aren't the ones who say it." If Mary had a question, she could ask it of him directly, but would not suffer their aristocratic circumlocution, "polite" conversation riddled with insinuations and prejudice. "But I don't mind," he finished with a smile, "there's worse reputations to have." Mary and Edith were now twice scandalized, but Sybil had a hand over her face to conceal her own smirk. He tipped his hat to them. "And with that, I'll leave you."

"Goodbye, Tom," Mary called. "Thank you for the tea."

"The pleasure was mine, my Lady," Tom replied and meant it. "You're always welcome in our home."

He closed the door and laughed.

* * *

><p>"What was that?" Sybil demanded of Mary.<p>

"Oh, pipe down. He certainly didn't shock _you_." Sybil didn't appreciate Mary's allusion what Sybil had confessed to her in confidence. "I only want to know if I'm to be aunt of a dozen."

Sybil made a face. "Of course not."

"How do you know? Have you discussed it?" Mary pressed. This was the harder of Granny's tasks for her in Dublin- and Mama had been in on this one as well. "He certainly didn't try to dissuade you of it now." Sybil rolled her eyes. "I'm serious, Sybil."

"So am I, _Mary." _There had been a time when Sybil followed Mary's lead in life, but that time had passed. Mary had not introduced this topic into Sybil's mind- the decision in Liverpool had done that- and while she still wasn't entirely sure how she envisioned her own motherhood, she had no plan to discuss it now or with them. "I'm sure some women want a lot of children."

"No they don't," Mary stated. "Not _thirteen_."

"And have you asked every woman in the world to confirm that?"

"I'm not interested in every other woman or _any _other woman," Mary told her. "I care about you."

"I don't care to discuss it, Mary!" Flustered, Sybil rose and started to clear the table. What did Mary know about it? She had never rejoiced at her monthly, nor dreaded _all this anxiety again _in four short weeks. Tom had assured her it didn't happen _so _easily, but despite how open they were with each other, she could not voice the word _prophylatic _or ask if he had ever used one before, _if it were tolerable_ or an_ enemy to pleasure_ as some of the officers complained. She'd pocketed two from the hospital: one, she had demystified behind her locked bedroom door; the other was presently hidden in the inside pocket of her suitcase. _A fat lot of good it will do there. _But she couldn't ask. There had been a finite window when it was justified _so we can be absolutely sure until we're married, I don't want any question about us _(especially in their circumstances_), _but it had closed now. A wife could not ask that of her husband.

But families here (the ones who lived in close quarters, at least) did seem to have a _lot_ of children. She was not quite sure how that would play out in the little flat, but she was quite sure her sisters had no useful advice to offer. Neither of them were in love and neither felt the fear of borrowed time on their ambitions. They frankly had no ambitions, other than domestic ones. _Thirteen children wouldn't make a whit of difference to them, they'd all be raised by other people anyway._

"Now," Sybil said to change the subject, "what should _we _do about dinner?"

* * *

><p>Mary set down the third and final plate. "<em>Et voila<em>."

"I do wish Erich were here to take a picture of _this_! The true face of the future!" Sybil's excitement could not be contained as she bounced around the backs of the kitchen chairs. "You're even in an _apron_!" she exclaimed as Mary untied it. "Papa will never believe it!"

"He'll never know about it." Mary had already sworn them to non-disclosure; what happened in Sybil's flat would stay between _us_ _and only us _and Mary was the only one allowed to break it.

"_I _can't believe it," Edith admitted with a chuckle. "But it's possible Mary has many sides we haven't seen." Sybil noted a curious confidence pass between Mary and Edith just then, but she chalked it up to their mutual perplexity at her life choice, which had once more reared itself in the discussion of dinner.

Sybil refused to eat at the hotel and Mary wouldn't consider a pub or one of _your rebel cafes _no matter how many times Sybil insisted,"They aren't rebel, they're bohemian. Rebel cafes only serve drinks and sandwiches at lunch." Finally, Sybil threw out a truly radical idea. "Why don't we eat here?"

"Here _where_?"

"_Here_, at this table."

Mary scoffed. "Oh- _no_."

"Why not? We have a kitchen." There was a market around the corner that stayed open late for after-work shoppers. "We could buy some bread and eggs-"

"Eggs for _dinner_?" Edith cut in.

"We've just had tea. Who doesn't like a little egg with their tea?"

Mary saw that Sybil had already made up her mind. "You're going to make dinner?"

"No..." A sadistic smile spread across her little sister's face. "_We're_ going to make it. This isn't the manor house. You don't cook, you don't eat. That's a Branson rule."

"You're not a Branson yet," Mary muttered.

Scrambled eggs was the easiest meal in the world, Sybil assured them. "One ingredient and no measurements. You can't possibly ruin it." She had made it multiple times at nurses' training when she'd been on breakfast duty and it was her staple when she'd had to cook breakfast at Mrs. Branson's- except for the time, after the notorious _meat pie incident _on Tom's first day of work, when Mrs. Branson had set out a skillet, seven potatoes, no recipe and left. "Luckily, I was saved by Tom's little niece Aileen- you'll meet her tomorrow. She came in the back door and I commandeered her." Aileen knelt on chair and whipped up Irish boxtys on the stove.

"And what did you do?" Edith interjected.

"I fretted! I had a six-year-old working over a pan of hot oil," Sybil laughed. "I don't approve of child labor, but it was worth it for the look on Mrs. Branson's face!" She had carried in the plate, while Aileen sneaked around to the front door. Tom crowed it was _as good as yours, Mam, _who could not herself find fault with them _though it's hard to figure how _you _would know what to do. _"Oh, I just improvised," Sybil had replied with a wink at Aileen. "Perhaps I just have a knack for the Irish cuisine!" Mrs. Branson nearly choked, then informed her sharply _this is famine food, so I doubt that _with a jab of her fork in the air. _Ah those were the days. _Sybil probably relished that victory more than she should, and said as much to Edith as they left for market.

A _public market _was too far for Mary, who bid them farewell from the doorway. "How can you take those stairs over and over?"

Sybil drew up her skirt with a sly comment about shapely calves. "The skirts are already shorter in the States, Mary. It's only a matter of time!" The eldest Crawley sister watched her little sisters bound down the stairs, a pair of bobbing hats and curls. _Funny_. She never thought of Sybil and Edith having the same hair_ but I suppose they do._

The market stalls and the dirt lane that divided them were packed- Edith received more than a few elbows in her ribs- and every seller shouted their wares and prices at them. Sybil didn't pay any attention. "You'd usually queue for the vendors you trust, but we haven't shopped much here so I don't know..." They needed dairy and bread, which were on opposite sides with lines.

"We should split up."

Sybil hesitated. "Are you sure?" This was a place with livestock, hustlers and freely-uttered curse words; not the heart, but the throat and stomach of the city. "It can be a little-"

"I'm sure," Edith affirmed. Sybil glanced at the dairy stall- there were mostly women in line. _They'll help her if she needs it. _It was settled- Edith would buy the eggs, Sybil would get the bread. Sybil estimated the price for her sister and told her _walk away if he asks much more than that. _

When they reconvened with their purchases, Edith was a shade paler than usual. "What's the matter?"

"He asked if I wanted the chicken too," she relayed, stricken. "And then he held it up." She mimicked the motion in the air where it had flapped and squawked for its life.

"Oh well for the chicken," Sybil responded with a dispassionate shrug. "We kill people indifferently too." That was Sybil's war experience, Edith knew; she would on occasion, rather subconsciously, make unflinching comments about death. She'd done it once at dinner and stopped the conversation cold; afterward, Papa had privately quarreled with Granny _this is why I didn't want her to do it, you don't know what war does to the mind. _He'd been especially attentive to Sybil in the next days, which she didn't appreciate at all. _I'll never say another word at dinner again_, _Papa's been on my case ever since! He keeps saying we should "talk" _she vented to her sisters, who did not know that their father's sudden interest was keeping Sybil from Branson. Edith had tried to ask Papa about South Africa, but he'd patted her hand and said he didn't want to talk about it.

On the walk back, Sybil commended her- she had been _very_ brave to venture to _a public market _with _all these real people _and their _real, live chickens_. But Edith could give as good as she got- and she did. "Spare me your _can-do_ism, Sybil, you can't even drive!"

* * *

><p>"I don't want any of that on <em>me<em>," Mary warned. Her eyes narrowed at Sybil's botched demonstration of _how to crack an egg_. The shell had shattered, but Sybil had managed to catch the pieces- and the yolk- in her palm.

"Then do it correctly and you won't."

"Darling..." Mary uttered as Sybil shook the edible contents from her hand into the bowl. "That's revolting."

"That's_ cooking_. Ick is the universal ingredient, it's in everything. Go down to the kitchen some day and see for yourself if you don't believe me. Now, this is the fun part- whisking!" And after a successful whisk, the eggs were in the pan, Mary herding them with a wooden spoon as Sybil watched over her pupil's shoulder. "You might be a natural, Mary."

"I'm not too old to yank your hair."

"You never yanked my hair."

"Probably why you turned out as you did," Mary teased, with a satisfied eye on her work which now looked like _actual scrambled eggs, _fluffy and yellow. And it hadn't taken more than ten minutes, start to finish, nor had it been hard. "And it's not too late to start."

"Well, I couldn't be prouder of you." Sybil rewarded her with an impetuous kiss on her cheek_, _then leaned back on the counter. "What could be better than this- the three of us here, all on our own?"

Edith was checking on the brown bread warming in the oven, which had started to scent the flat. "You'd best not let Tom hear that."

"He doesn't need to be so stiff all the time," Mary said, as she scraped the pan.

"He wants to make a good impression."

Mary raised her head. "Is that the impression he thinks he's making?"

"Don't be mean, Mary," Sybil chided her. "No one's ever treated you the way our sort of people treat him all the time and no one ever would." She took down the dinner plates. "And if anyone did, you'd take it worse than he does. You know it too." Edith snorted. _Sybil_ could say that. Sybil glanced at the eggs. "That's good. Well done, Mary, truly."

Edith sliced and buttered the bread, Sybil set the table, but Mary refused to leave her post_- _she'd be damned if her eggs went bad, even if that couldn't happen, Sybil said, because the stove had been turned off. "I don't suppose you have wine?"

"Of course- we're no teetotalers. There should be a bottle in that bottom cabinet." Sybil mentioned it was_ for tomorrow night, but I can replace it before then_ but she wouldn't have to because Mary and Edith had no intention of letting their little sister honeymoon in a Dublin flat.

Edith retrieved it and Sybil told Mary to sit, but Mary insisted that she serve- "as I am the chef tonight"- and so she did, in an apron, the dinner she had made. "_Et viola-_ Eggs Crawley."

When it was time to eat, Edith made the toast. "To sisters," she began, "and to the chef, for making Sybil eloping with the chauffeur only the _second_ most shocking thing to happen to us three in Dublin." Sincerely said and sincerely received by Mary, who lifted her glass as she had that day in 1914 and ended the Great War between them.


	78. Chapter 78: Friday June 20 Part III

_thank you so much! happy new year!  
><em>

_we meet Aileen's mother... next chapter soon.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Friday Night<strong>

** June 20, 1919**

Liam Branson was the last of Mrs. Branson's sons to arrive in the world and at her table for Tom's last dinner at home. She leapt out of her chair when she saw him. "Mother of God!"

"Relax, Ma. I'm fine." Frank, a stocky and amiable man who by nature minded his own business, rose as well and offered Liam a handshake and a whiskey (which Mrs. Branson had permitted in small quantity because it was a special occasion) without comment on his swollen, red cheek. "Slainte, Frank. Good to see you."

Tom whistled. "Nice shiner. Sybil will love _that_ in our photos."

"Was it the police that done that to you? Soldiers?" Mrs. Branson's heart beat faster with every unanswered question as the boys bantered. "Did they raid your offices?"

Liam put his hand on his Frank's shoulder; it never took a Branson more than a breath to come up with a comeback and in one sip he had his. "And what happened to yours, Tommy?" Tom bit and touched his cheek. "Oh sorry- that's just your face."

Grins passed between them and Tom conceded a point then went to take two back with his retort, "We can't all be a pretty piece like you Liam, eh Frankie?"

Frank- who, like Keiran, had a kind but charmless smile- didn't miss a chance. "Speak for yourself, lad."

Perhaps her sons had days when they did not think about their cousin murdered by British soldiers, fifteen bullets pumped into him, fourteen more than were needed, or the mother who would mourn him forever, but Mor Branson did not. "Liam, what the hell's happened?" she cried.

"Don't scare her, Liam." Tom swapped an amused look with Frank who, like him, used to box and had deduced, as he had, that the pink-red contusion was too small and shallow to have been put there by a military man, a policeman or any man at all; it was a kid or a woman. And since it was Liam, it was almost certainly a woman and they could poke fun because he almost certainly deserved it. "Tell your Mam what happened to you."

"If you must know, Clare Kelly happened to me," Liam replied with half a smile. "Now, can someone pass the bread, please?"

* * *

><p>Emboldened by her day out in Dublin, Edith decided to accept Sybil's invitation to come out to the pub<em>.<em> Mary took the car back to the hotel while Edith waited a ridiculous amount of time for Sybil to primp in her bedroom. _He already wants to marry you_, _hurry up! _Edith impatiently called out at one point, but it wasn't for Tom that Sybil adjusted and readjusted her headband. These were Tom's _old _friends, as both Liam and Mrs. Branson had told her as a caution: they don't like _dorans _and they don't trust people outside of their class. Oddly, she had discovered when she conducted the newspaper poll that many people in the _old neighborhood _received her less traitorously than Tom-the-newly-minted-journalist; she was who she was, but Tom was _different._

Seated at her vanity, Sybil pulled out Clare's lipstick. _I would never_... She applied it and shuddered at her own reflection. Gummy and hideous. _Every man I walk by will gawk... _Her father would explode if he saw her now. Mama would probably start to cry. Granny would say it plain: she looked like a street walker. Why did the lower class women and even middle class women want to appropriate their fashions? Sybil had never seen a prostitute until she came to Dublin, where the prevelance and openness of the flesh trade had shocked her. They lined up on Sackville Street! Clare had explained it to her: _once the street lamps come on, us women walk on this side and leave that one to them. _There were dozens of them, with the same youthful, animated faces, except she and Clare were off to a dance and they were off to...

It upset her- _a lot_- the first time she saw them. She didn't want to dance and made Tom take her home after only an hour. The officers at the hospital patronized prostitutes in France, but she pictured them as voluptuous, world-wise Madames, Can-Can dancers in red and black shifts. But this was not mysterious or romantic; this was raw, exploited desperation. Girls with mothers and fathers and best friends who had come to believe the value they could add to the world was to rent their person as a repository until disease killed them off. _That's why you never see ones much older than us _Rebecca Halloran had told her. Dublin had more brothels per capita than London. Both Rebecca and Tom blamed the system: _female workers are little more than slave labor and men are kept too poor to marry and then they say the Irish live like animals _but once Ireland was socialist everyone would have a decent shot.

Sybil stared at her reflection. She doubted Rebecca approved of make-up. In her Ireland, all women would be like Isobel: capable, educated, sexless. But Clare and her friends loved the attention. Rebecca's social experiences had been as cloistered as hers, Tom's old friends would be just as suspicious of her. Sybil wanted to be accessible. And _a lady would never _so she puckered her lips and tried not to think of Sackville Street. Edith's eyes went wide when she reappeared. "Is it a costume party? Who are you supposed to be?"

Sybil collected her purse and hoped Edith didn't see how self-consciousness she was. "Is it too red?"

"It's _red_."

"Get your coat on." Edith did, with a comment on Sybil's headband. Sybil said she didn't plan to wear a hat in the pub, _it's not really done here_. They went to leave. "I hope Tom doesn't hate this lipstick."

"I thought you didn't care what anyone thinks of you." _No, but I care what people think about Tom_. A journalist's reputation was critical and she would not be the reason any source doubted his loyalties. "Smile," Edith ordered. "You have some on your teeth."

"Damn it," she muttered as she tried to rub it off. "This stuff is horrid."

"Mama would murder you, you know."

"Yes. Better?" Edith nodded. "Tell me if it happens again?" Edith promised she would. "Thanks."

Edith smiled. "What are sisters for?"

* * *

><p>It was Friday and Friday was payday. Moira Branson stood in the queue to receive her half-crown for the week <em>and not a moment too soon<em>. The pay was awful (albeit not uncompetitve for an unskilled female worker in Dublin), but the factory provided two essential benefits: shower stalls and an on-site doctor. Still, it barely covered the cost of food and a room in the slums for herself and Aileen. Fridays depressed her. All she did was work and yet she was always broke. Her pay was spent before it hit her palm- _the landlord, the tab at the grocer's, debts to friends who had helped out in a pinch- _and as she stared down the line of denim work dresses and sweaty brows, all she felt was bitterness about the life she had and the one she had been robbed of.

Another worker, whom she was friendly with, struck up a conversation while they waited. "Your cousin's wedding is tomorrow, yeah? That'll be nice. A bit of fun."

"He's not my cousin," Moira snapped. "He's Bill's people." _And I'd rather stab me eyes out._ "Anyway, I have to work."

"So you won't see Aileen the bridesmaid." The woman's daughter went to Aileen's primary school. "Your one has talked my one's ear off about it."

"Don't start me. Jesus, she hasn't shut up about it." _Or her, _but that was another story. _Uncle Liam Uncle Liam, _with his treats and his field trips, was bad enough and now it was:

_Mam, can I cut my hair short like Sybil's?_

_Sybil and Uncle Tom have a Frigidaire from America! It's to put the milk in and it never sours like ours. _

_Sybil's been to New York loads of times and she wants to take Uncle Tom and perhaps I could come to! _

And Sybil always had time to stop at park and Sybil always had money for lemonade and she was always nice and never yelled. _If I had her life, I'd never yell either._

_Aileen's in for a rude surprise with her "Auntie Sybil_." Aileen may be her Protestant charity case now, while she was bored at Mrs. Branson's and wanted to win over Tom's family. But wait until she was married, with her own precious babies- _she won't let Aileen wash their nappies. _And Tom! He would never let _his_ children fraternize with tenement kids. Isn't that what his new life, new wife was about- to delouse himself of all of them?

She and Tom had been friends back in Tom's reckless youth. He used to come over and play cards when she and Bill were first married; he'd even minded baby Aileen once so she and Bill could watch the fireworks over Dublin Bay. She worried to leave them but Bill joked _don't worry, women love him, I should know. _When Bill was a bachelor and Tom came back to the city from his apprenticeship in Wicklow, he'd let Tom use the room he rented to feck his summer loves. Kathleen, before she broke with him. Nelly. Norah, with the violet eyes. Siobhan. Kathleen. _Did you make up then? _Moira teased when he met them in the park to return the key. _We might have_, he returned with a twinkle, _but I don't kiss and tell. _That was a beautiful year, 1912 into 1913, and Tom was so irreverent and fun. She had seen him only once since he'd been back, with his _fiancee_, and he'd acted like they were barely acquainted. _This is Aileen's mother, Moira. May I present Miss Crawley_.

_Present her? Who are you, Father Christmas?_ They did not find that funny. Tom ushered Sybil back to his brother and their very important conversation topics. _He carries on like he's the Lord Mayor himself. _The last straw had come when he quietly offered to reimburse her a day's pay if she wanted to attend the wedding. _We can afford it_, he'd said.

_We? _she had repeated, incredulous._ Her father, you mean? Because I know you don't have any money and she certainly doesn't earn any. _Bill had defended his decision in 1916 to remain in service to a British Lord and not return to Ireland- before he'd been shot dead, that is. _I'd die before I'd take that blood money. _

"Celebrate that woman and her husband and their _new life_? Where's my husband, I ask you?" Moira blurted out, her voiced choked. "Where's _my_ life?"

* * *

><p>With strict instructions from their mother- <em>Don't you dare come home late or drunk and not one drop after midnight before Communion<em>-Tom and Liam set off for the tram stop. Frank had dutifully stayed behind to visit with her. "Frank ought to be her favorite," Tom said. "He's the only one of us who never gave her any trouble."

"Frank's a decent chap," Liam concurred. Tom rolled his eyes. _Chap _was one of his university words. "I don't know why I never see him."

"He has five- er, _six_ children."

"And a hen of a wife."

Tom chuckled. "Aw, Maeve's not so bad." Liam (understandably) wasn't in the mood for relationship talk, so Tom asked what he had learned about the arrest of the Countess.

Good news and bad, Liam relayed. Sinn Fein's sources inside Dublin Castle- _spies_, Tom supplied, _call them what they are, everyone knows you have them_- said there was no plan for blanket arrests of Sinn Fein electeds. Indeed, the British authorities were as flummoxed as ever by Sinn Fein and its policy not of revolutionary force against British rule, but of _ignoring British rule _and setting up its own government as if Ireland were already free. "They know how to obliterate us, but they have no idea what to do short of that."

Tom nodded. The new Sinn Fein was smart- too smart to storm a Post Office without an exit plan. _This is political revolution._ "The British have been paralyzed by the rebels' moderation. Grand, if you can hold your fire. Of course, we Irish aren't really known for our temperance," Tom remarked with a flick to his brother's cheek.

"Don't I know it."

"So what's the bad news?"

"Our sources- our _spies_- say the Countess was arrested _because _of her celebrity. The British _want_ it in every French and American newspaper, so there will be no mistake at Versailles that British rule in Ireland is still very much in effect."

Tom mulled the implications. The American Irish had a lot of political clout in America- domestic pressure on President Wilson would only be increased by De Valera's heroic arrival. "The Americans would love to rubber stamp Irish freedom and take the credit," Tom mused. "But we don't need a liberator any more than we need an oppressor. That's not _self-determination_."

"That's for damn sure."

"And the Countess herself?" Tom inquired. "Sybil will want to know."

"I expect the British will release her once the Peace Conference is over. Until then, she'll have to serve. But I doubt they'll work her too hard. They won't want pictures of a woman in chains in the papers, that's for sure. And Sybil needn't worry about Constance. She is unbreakable."

"Irish women," Tom remarked.

"Irish women," Liam repeated, Clare on his mind. "Mad as feck, all of them."

They had arrived at the stop. "So why'd she hit you?"

Liam lifted a shoulder. "She's an Irish woman."

Tom was skeptical, but Liam insisted Clare hadn't given a reason. "You need to fix this. You and Clare are your business, but Sybil's invited two friends to her wedding and two friends will be there tomorrow, understood? Say whatever you need to say to make it happen, but make it happen."

Liam nodded. "Maybe I should be like you and find a nice, unemotional, even-tempered British wife." Tom burst out laughing. "What? Don't think I can?"

"You really don't know anything about women do you? Sybil may not use her fist- words and withering looks are her weapons of choice- but she can hit as well as your Clare, believe me."

Liam touched his own cheek affectionately. "It was a good hit, wasn't it?"

"Aye, it was," Tom concurred.

"She's no slouch, Clare. She knows how to handle herself."

"She knows how to handle you at least."

"And she may throw a punch once in awhile, but hell, I'd take that ten-fold over some missus hectoring me day and night." _Maeve. _ "I'm serious. Our brother's told when and how to wipe his own arse." Tom chuckled; it wasn't that much of an embellishment. "Our girls would never treat us like that. Very modern women, they are."

"Indeed," Tom concurred. _Jesus he's done for. _"Go find her and sort it out."

Liam checked his watch. Clare would be cleaning up after dinner now; the rest of the evening shift would be quiet. The boarding house owner would be gone home leaving Clare in charge- even if she were still mad, she'd behave like a boss. Work came first with her_. _He admired and identified with that. She really was a good match for him. He put his hand on Tom's shoulder. "Thanks brother, I think I will."

* * *

><p>The sisters didn't talk much on the way, drowned out by the bustle and din of the city as they cut a serpentine path up the narrow sidewalk against carts, bicycles, and half-tipped lorries that careened around the corners. "Watch it!" Sybil shouted after one had nearly clipped them. Two old men on a bench who had seen it validated her outburst with nods as she muttered about <em>these city drivers. <em>

In these moments (and there had been _many_ of them today), Edith wondered if her sister performed for her or for herself and decided it was the latter. Sybil didn't seek or want her admiration; indeed, she was too self-involved to fret over others' opinions. This was about Sybil's vision of herself as a _savvy city woman _and she actualized it with all the self-importance imbued in her previous roles of _war nurse, feminist crusader, _and of course, _secret lover of the lower-class. _

Edith sensed her sister was cross with her, but she didn't know why. It's not close by," Sybil had warned her as they left. "It's not so nice either. It's a _local_ establishment."

Edith halted on the sidewalk. "Do you want me to come or don't you?"

"Of course you should come," she replied, an answer that avoided the question.

They reached the Liffey and crossed over a white pedestrian bridge called the Ha'Penny. The weather was warm and pleasant, the sky pink and dotted with birds. Dublin had its charms, Edith could see. Sybil slowed her pace, then stopped, put her hands on the rail and looked down the river. And beyond that, the sea which had carried her here. This was her favorite spot in Dublin- the middle of the Liffey, the crossroads of the city. _North, south, east, west, and which way will you go? _Edith stepped beside her. "Why did you tell Mary the reception was in a pub?"

Edith had disclosed it in the debate over dinner, when Mary announced she wouldn't eat in a pub. Mary, to her credit, had let it pass. But Edith certainly wasn't remorseful. "She ought to know."

"It wasn't your place to say."

"Better she find out now and be prepared than be shocked tomorrow," Edith defended. "And what of it? You said you didn't care if she ate in the hotel."

"I never said I didn't _care_."

"But you _don't_ care, Sybil," Edith shot back. "You don't." The proverbial box had been opened- Edith loved her sister, but she could not suffer another round of Sybil the victim of other people's intolerance. Sybil's scheme of a Catholic Church service and a reception in a Dublin pub was the definitive proof to Edith that everyone in the family showed more consideration for Sybil than she did for them. "You really planned to take our parents to a _public house? _And _Granny?_" Sybil's red mouth fell open, not in disbelief of her own choices but that she was being called out for them. _ "_If you cared, you would have done it differently, _all _of it," Edith charged, "from the day you had Branson burst in and humiliate Papa in front of everyone!"

"I suppose you didn't hear how he humiliated us? 'Seduced?' 'Scraped?' Does any of that sound familiar?"

"You forced the confrontation," Edith replied. "You could have told Papa yourself. You could have had Branson write him, make his case like any proper suitor!"

Sybil scoffed. "He wouldn't have listened and you know it."

"No, I don't know and neither do you!" Edith retorted. "You could have stayed and married in York or Liverpool even, in a chapel where no one knows us."

"Tom had a _job_, Edith!"

"He wouldn't have come back so you could marry in front of your parents? That's what Papa would have asked him. And not because he is who he is, but because he's your father." Sybil huffed. "I don't think it's too much to ask. Especially as it is him and not _Branson's job_ that's financing your Dublin life."

Sybil's expression hardened. "Don't ever say that to Tom. He works and so will I. Papa's the one who weds and beds for his money."

Edith started; Sybil had crossed a line, but she was unrepentant. "That's horrible. To speak so crassly of our parents."

"It's true, isn't it? It was a business deal, no more." Edith couldn't see the inherent prejudice in her ask that Tom 'make his case,' as she put it; he certainly didn't need a seal of worthiness from Lord Grantham. "Please you don't lecture me about marital integrity in our family. We don't value what he values. And secondly, the only person my husband needs to 'make his case to' is _me_."

"You're free to marry whomever you want, however you want,_ obviously," _her sister said pointedly. "You wanted to set off a bomb and you did, but don't cry about your wounds."

"Papa will never accept my choice," Sybil said in a steely tone, "which is quite apparent from the fact that is not here."

That was a token rejection compared to the very substantial support she had received in her rebellions. "What has he ever done but bow to your demands?" Edith cried. "Answer me! He let you canvas after Ripon, he let you become a nurse, and when you ran away with his chauffeur _he wrote you a check! _And you act like he's thrown you to the wolves!" Her emotion rose up, despite her efforts. But it infuriated her that Sybil refused to see all that Papa had done for her and for the sole reason that he loved her and he wanted her in his life. Even if Sybil didn't care if he was in hers. "Frankly, you deserve him not to come!"

Sybil turned her attention back out to the river; she was finished with this conversation. "See it however you want, but that's not how it is." _Marry in York- how ridiculous_. _And what of Tom's family_? As if everyone had time and money to jaunt from country to country. And move to Dublin with British papers.

Edith should have stopped- she'd made her point- but she pressed on because she rarely talked back and because Mary would never say it to Sybil. "And what about Mama?"

"What about her?"

"She's devastated not to be here."

Edith saw Sybil's chin jut forward in profile. "She should learn to stand up for herself then. I did." She whipped her head to her sister. "As I've said, I don't have any quarrel with anyone, but it's my life and I won't ask Papa's or anyone's permission to live it. If you want my advice, you shouldn't either."

* * *

><p><em>AN: the story about Sackville Street- women for hire walk on one side, respectable women walk on the other- is true.  
><em>

_And re: Edith. I'm team S/B, but bbs needed some real talk. Just because Robert was in the wrong doesn't mean Sybil was in the right in how she handled it.  
><em>


	79. Chapter 79: Bachelor's Night Part 1

_life delay. thanks so much as always! _

* * *

><p><strong>Friday Night<strong>

** June 20, 1919**

Annoyed, with each convinced of the other's refusal to see the situation as she saw it, Sybil and Edith walked the rest of the way to the pub in silence. The relationship between the younger Crawley sisters lacked awe on both ends- Sybil didn't defer to Edith as she did to Mary, and Edith didn't adore Sybil as Mary did- it was rather a usual sisterly relationship, but in the best way; they respected each other, liked each other, bickered with each other and most importantly, were _honest _with each other. Sentiment didn't stop either sister from speaking the shortcomings each saw in the other: _Sybil's insufferable self-involvement_, _Edith's infuriating inertia. _But just the same, each allowed herself to be influenced by the other. Sybil pushed Edith to think (and step) outside the box of the life they had been born into, while Edith reminded Sybilshe didn't always have to douse the box in kerosene and set it on fire.

And in the best way of sisters, their honesty was efficacious. Sybil would remember Edith's words on the bridge when she read her mother's wedding letter to her in the bride's room tomorrow. As for Edith... well, Edith had no idea as she entered the pub with Sybil that she was about to embark on the most daring, adventurous night of her life_... so far._

* * *

><p>Liam was on the tram back from Ringsend. It had not gone well with Clare.<p>

For starters, she had refused to let him in, preferring instead to glare down the porch stairs at him as he pleaded with her to talk. And then, to add insult to black-eyed injury, some smarmy _Spaniard _came out, sidled up behind her, and _put his hand on her _with the words, "Iz he a pro-lem?"

_There will be a problem if you don't move your hand_. "This is a private conversation," Liam informed him. "Get lost."

"Oh shut up," Clare snapped. Pico, she said- _Pico?!- _was a welcome guest at this boarding-house, which was more than she could say for him. Pico wisely went back inside and when he did, Clare put her hands on her hips and taunted, "He's taking me dancing tonight."

_"_Dancing." Liam's dark curls shook in disbelief. "With Pico."

"That's what I said, are you deaf?" No, but he must be blind because Liam couldn't see any reason why Clare would want to go out with him. He's a _p__urser_, she boasted. _"_He works with money, like you."

Not even a sailor- a_ purser. "_Clare, a purser makes change on a ship. He's a _cashier_. I'm an economist in the Ministry of Finance!" She rolled her eyes. He narrowed his. "Where are you going dancing?" Her shift didn't end until midnight; the dance halls they went to didn't admit that late.

"Somewhere in Temple Bar." She added sadistically, "You know my father works until five."

_Of course _he knew; they'd been rolling in her bed before then this very morning_- _quite happily, or so he thought. And now, tonight..._ You'd make a fine executioner, Clare Kelly, not an ounce of mercy in you_. Liam took a calming breath. "Clare. Come on. You don't want to do that. It'll be all drunks and soldiers." _And fake sailors named Pico_. She hesitated- hope!- and he dared to scale one of the four steps between them. "Come on, honey. Let's talk it out."

But when he tried to take her hand- her left hand, as it happened- she heard, unbeknownst to him, the echo of that Margaret O'Nobody earlier: _He better marry me. _She snatched her hand back. "Touch me and I'll blacken your other eye, I swear to God..."

Confused and desperate, he called after her, "Doesn't a man at least have the right to know what he's accused of?"

Clare turned back and let out a short, brutal laugh- "Just where do you think you are? This is Ireland. Everyone knows there's no justice here"- then slammed the door in his face.

_Forget it. Put it out of your mind, _Liam told himself as the tram hurtled toward the pub. He had to rally for Tom. It was his brother's last night as a bachelor and he needed to be in good form. At least he had managed to confirm Clare she would be at the wedding. Perhaps she would speak to him tomorrow. _But tonight, Pico_.. He leaned his head against the tram door. He could use a drink, or ten.

* * *

><p>The factory whistles had blown several hours ago and they stepped into a crush of people- mostly men, but some women- sitting, standing, angling for a better position near the bar or the piano where a crescent moon-faced player banged out Irish ballads over pitched laughter. It was Friday, pay day, when everybody had money and anyone who didn't could count on the princely benefacting of a pint. Edith was quite overwhelmed by the jabs of other people's arms and elbows into her ribs, their feet on her toes- "<em>Sorry, love, didn't see you there<em>"- their porter sloshing all over, but Sybil handled the raucous scene quite normally.

In truth, Sybil was coaching herself. There were some poisonous opinions about her and Tom in the neighborhood, which she was determined to repudiate- for Tom's reputation, but also because that's who she was. That's who _they _were. She hadn't let anyone talk down about them at home and she wouldn't standby silently here- and anyway, here _was_ home now. She was confident she could win over Tom's friends(she may not know maths, but damn if her "education" hadn't taught her how to charm). Lipstick, a new hair band, and a foolproof conversation piece: _the Bohemians, _all working-men followed the Bohemians that played at Dalymount Park, the newsagent who sold her the sporting pages had said so, _and remember football here is called soccer. _

Craning her head for Tom, Sybil caught the fancy of a short man in a cloth cap who cut his way over to accost her: where did she live, would she have a drink with him, was she there to meet a _feller_. "I am!" she finally snapped _in an Irish accent_, "and he's a boxer, so you'd best not let him find you bothering us!"

The accoster slunk off and Edith picked her jaw off the floor. "_What,_" she demanded,_ "_was _that_?"

"A drunkard," Sybil demurred in her real voice. Edith shot her a look. "Oh- _that_." Sybil bit back a smile; she sometimes practiced a Dublin accent in her head (she had a fantasy that, once she had her Irish papers, she might some time fool a "redcoat"), but she had only tried it out loud once. "Was I very believable?"

"Yes- Granny will be thrilled to hear you've become an actress as well!" Sybil rolled her eyes."You ought to be on the stage," her sister went on. "If you're going to lie, you may as well get fame and fortune for it."

"Hardly," Sybil tossed back. She and Edith were on each other's last nerve; if they were children, Nanny would separate them. _Who even wants to be on the stage anymore? _"If I were going to be an actress, it would be in films. Like Theda Bera."

"Who?" As usual, Sybil couldn't forsee any trouble invoking a fake identity and fake protector to an already-agitated drunk. "Lucky for Tom, that man believed you." At Sybil's blank expression, she mimicked, 'He's a _boxer_!'"

"He is," Sybil affirmed plaintively, as she resumed her search for him. "Or _was_, rather." Edith found this implausible; he certainly hadn't had time to box while he worked for them and it wasn't exactly in concert with his _yes milord, yes milady _comportment. "Ooh, I see him." Sybil reached her hand up. "Tom! Tom!"

Edith did a double-take. But the man striding through the parted crowd in a workman's shirt, shoulders thrown back, nodding at the (many) people he knew was indeed _Branson_. She'd always thought of him as stiff and defensive (even today, _in his own home_, he'd been like that), but Branson on his own turf was entirely different: relaxed, confident, emminent sociable.

More than once, Mary and Edith had wondered what Sybil saw in Branson- and now, Edith saw it. The chauffeur had swagger. Also a physique; the notion that Branson boxed was not nearly as preposterous as it had seemed a moment ago. Sybil's attraction was unabashed and when he walked up and kissed her on the cheek, her eyes fluttered closed. Her sister whispered something that made him smile. Tom brushed his thumb over Sybil's red bottom lip with what Edith read as checked distaste. "What's this?"

"A bridal gift from Clare." Tom eyed the men around her who were staring. "Clare wears it all the time," she continued with a familiar note of defiance. "I've never heard you express an opinion on it before." Edith gamely waited Tom's response._ I wonder how _he_ likes it, without Papa around to blame._

Tom chuckled and wisely said only, "Don't let Ma Branson catch you wearing that," with a chuck under Sybil's chin. It was no news to him that Sybil Crawley was not anyone's obedient little woman. Edith had to admit he played it well. "Hello, Edith. Glad you decided to come." He greeted her warmly, but didn't try to shake her hand; a holdover from his days as her servant. _Still Branson._

Tom guided them to a table in the back, his arm around Sybil's shoulders. She told him fondly that it reminded her of Ripon. "So it was all a ruse to get me close to you?"

She tipped her head up to him. "It worked, didn't it?" she quipped. "Is it so hard for you to believe I wanted for so long to be in your arms?"

"You might have made it a bit clearer earlier, _my lady,_" he teased.

_Ripon. "My lady." _That was _years _back and only now- in a workshirt, short hair and lipstick, a journalist and a nurse between jobs, arm-in-arm in the pub- did Edith see how far they had come. They had a home, decorated in their taste, with the bookcase Branson built. They finished each other's sentences, knew each other's preferences. They shared the same humor, the same memories, the same story: _their_ story.

* * *

><p>Sybil's charm offensive worked- she was embraced by Tom's old friends: Michael, also Michael, Seamus, Mick, and one called Cooley (not his real name), who'd been ravaged by rickets as a baby, but had a wicked sense of humor. They were happy for female company and feted and flirted with their friend's fiancee as any decent Irishmen would- <em>Ah, you're gorgeous! She's gorgeous, Tommy, what a grand girl you've got <em>and were impressed with her enthusiasm for the Bohemians even after Sybil asked how many points a goal was worth.

Edith was welcomed as well- if her Britishness bothered them, they didn't let on- and kind Cooley made a great show of inquiring after each parade of compliments for Sybil, _And does she have a sister? _which Tom would follow with "As a matter of fact..." It was more unabashed male attention than Edith had ever received and maybe they were nobodies and flattered everybody, but so what? She liked it. John the farmer and Patrick Gordon weren't anybody and she had liked them too.

* * *

><p>"Liam." No sooner had he walked in the door and the burly publican cornered him to complain, "You know I don't like unmarried girls in here." He did not need to explain why to a local familiar with the pub ecosystem: married women drank exclusively with other women or with their husbands in mixed company, while almost all the unmarried women who came here were <em>working. <em>The few unmarried women who were not- the ones who flushed and hovered nervously- were usually hoping to _walk out _with a man. A walk to the park, a canoodle, a coin or two slipped into a coat pocket. This was not prostitution, it was survival for decent women whose families had fallen on hard times and the publican passed no judgment, but nor did he want any confusion with two pretty, well-kept _dorans, _who were presently the recipients of many curious and covetous glances in the corner with a bunch of Tom's old friends.

"You know Sybil," Liam countered. "She's the bride,"

The publican did; she'd been in before with Tom without incident. "Fine. Tom will look after her. What about the other one?"

"Her sister. Don't worry," Liam assured him. "I'll mind her."

The publican appraised Edith, all milk skin and fine manners, copper curls shaking under her hat. _Ha. I bet you will. _He knew the Branson brothers. But his concern was keeping the peace in his pub, not protecting the virtue of British girls. "See that you do." He tossed Liam a dish towel. "And tell Sybil to wipe that shyte off her face."

Liam protested that he already had one black eye, but the publican was unmoved. "At least pour me a pint," Liam groused. The publican set down a courtesy whiskey shot while Liam waited for his Guinness. "And while you do..."

* * *

><p>"Is that Liam?" Seamus directed the table's attention to the bar, where Liam Branson was standing up precariously on a stool. "Feck me! What's he after?"<p>

Sybil leaned into Tom. "What happened to his eye?" _Right. _He hadn't told her yet about Liam and Clare, but the bell above the bar prevented it:

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The last-call bell was serious business- the piano and a hundred jubilant conversations stopped. Edith watched as Tom's brother, one of the few men here in a suit, cleared his throat, raised a glass, and boomed, "My brother is getting married tomorrow!"

The crowd, lubricated for a celebration, erupted. Hear, hear and _Adh Mor, Adh Mor! __Irish for luck _Sybil informed Edith quite proudly- many people had said to her after they learned she was to be married to Tom. Liam pointed out the intended to the room- "That's him there, my brother Tom Branson and his missus. As you can see, he's a lucky fellow-" and Sybil blushed when some of the men audibly concurred. "He's a son of the northside, born in Killarney Parade"- which everyone but the Crawleys knew referred to the tenement on that street- "to as good a mother as did ever come with child naturally," he added with a mischievous grin. The crowd ate up the comparison to the Virgin Mother.

"Look at him, speechifying," Mick observed. "The_ politician_." Edith did not think it was a compliment and was surprised to hear skepticism from _these people_ toward a Sinn Feiner.

Tom and Sybil were fixated on Liam's heartfelt speech with humbled smiles, hands clasped on the table, as Liam told the world, "Tom's always looked out for me, for our mam, and now he'll have someone to look out for him. We're couldn't be gladder about that, Tom- me and Ma and Frank. Every happiness, brother, there's no one who deserves it more." For all his confidence, Tom wasn't used to public praise and was visibly embarrassed. Sybil meanwhile looked every bit the proud wife. "To my brother"- the whole room raised up- "and his beautiful bride!" Edith joined the toast and noticed with amusement that both Branson brothers appeared to have something in his eye.

Liam closed with the customary call to action: "You know what to do when a northside lad gets hitched!" This is what Tom dreaded- his bride looked expectantly at him. "Don't worry, darlin'"- Liam indicated Sybil, as he delivered with relish the punchline anticipated by everyone in the room, save again for the Crawleys- "He promised you he wouldn't spend a cent in the pub the night before his wedding and we will make sure of it!"

* * *

><p>Northside Dublin did not disappoint- a trove of pints and shots reached the table before Liam did. Tom felt his skull throb as he stared down his immediate future. "You aren't going to drink all that?" Sybil demanded. It was not a question, it was an had no problem with rules not imposed on her, Edith thought as Tom futilely tried to explain why he couldn't refuse<em>- bad luck, people's hard-earned money-<em> as he threw back two shots, which were instantly replaced by four more.

Sybil's face went almost as red as her lipstick. "_Tom-_"

Her wrath was preempted by a suit-clad arm. "Relax, Princess," Liam cut in and he downed one of the shots and distributed the remainder between himself, Sybil, and Edith. "I'm the best man. I'll make sure he makes it to the church tomorrow."

"Upright?"

"Some question from you!" Liam laughed. "You fell off the barstool!"

"You _f__ell_ off a _barstool_?" Edith turned from Sybil to Tom. "What have you done to my sister?"

"Me? I carried her up the stairs-"

"You didn't _carry_ me, I could walk," corrected Sybil.

"-and nursed her back to consciousness and health. And _decency_," Tomadded. "My God, were you a crank the next day!"

"Wait until we're married!" Sybil quipped. "Ask Edith. She knows what a bear I can be."

Tom took her chin in hand. "Ah, but _my_ bear," he joked, at which both Edith and Liam rolled their eyes. "Which brings me back to: if class, money, station, and five-hundred years of colonialism and tribal war couldn't keep me from you..." His invoked the words of his best man. "Darlin', you have nothing to worry about."

"Here- some more advice from the best man." Liam saw an opportunity and tossed the publican's towel to Sybil. "Wipe that stuff off your face so my brother can kiss you properly."

* * *

><p>As expected, Tom and Sybil were more than thrilled to comply and, the lipstick issue handled, Liam turned to his other task: minding sister Edith. "Want some air?" he asked her. Their brother and sister were presently involved in some lover's play of <em>missed a spot<em>. Edith nodded adamantly.

"Nice save," Edith said when they were outside, where the street was dark but still full of people and life.

"Thanks." He reached into his pocket for a smoke as he extended his free hand to Edith. "I'm Liam Branson, by the way. We met earlier."

"No, we didn't," she retorted. "We were in the same room earlier. We were not_ introduced_." She showed a wry smile- it was a joke, what an aristocratic snob _would_ say- which he returned. He took a puff, then realized his lack of etiquette and asked if she'd like one which she shyly declined. He smoke while she internally floundered- what to say, what to do. It's not that she was even attracted to him- he _was_ attractive, but- it was more that attractive, popular men never sought her company. They were drawn to Mary, or possibly Sybil in the pre-Branson romance days when Sybil still socialized. Edith found those innuendo-riddled flirtation obvious and vapid, but she didn't know what kind of conversation was appropriate for Tom's Feinian brother. She stuck to their extremely limited shared experience: Tom and Sybil. "Are they always like that?"

"All over each other?" he replied with amusement. "_Yes_."

"How nice." Edith made a face.

"They're in love," Liam said with some wist. _Clare. _"Don't you like love?"

"Of course, but... all that_._.. in front of everyone."

"You've never been in love," he conjectured. She was affronted by his presumption and told him so. "Have you?" It was not pejorative. " We're family now, sort of."

"No, we're not," she refuted. "You and I aren't."

"Well, we're not strangers either." Liam walked to the end of the sidewalk and dropped his butt down the sewer. "You can ask me whatever you want."

Edith sized him up- she wanted a query that would be uncomfortable, but not too personal. After all, they were _not_ family and the Crawley family didn't exactly make personal inquiries; how else had Sybil and Branson existed? "What happened to your eye?"

"I got punched by a girl."

"_Your_ girl?"

"Not anymore- not if Pico can help it," he muttered. "Never mind. What else?"

"What did you really think of my sister when she arrived?"

_Bullseye. _He stammered. "Uh, to be honest..." It pained him to repeat the words. "I believe the phrase I used was 'I wouldn't have waited five minutes.'"

"You didn't!"

"I did," Liam rued. "I don't know if Tom ever found out." _Probably not._ If he had... "But I really care about Sybil. She's fun and funny, very passionate about politics and her beliefs. And she _loves_ my brother."

Liam had unintentionally shamed her father and the official Crawley family position; while it was not her own personal view of Sybil's choice, she felt uncomfortable that her "side" as it were, was one of unsustainable and indefensible prejudice. "No, I've never been in love," Edith finally admitted, "at least not with someone who was simultaneously in love with me."

Liam smiled at her. "Don't worry," he said as he went to open the door. "t'll happen."

Edith had seen Fitz pull up in the car (Mary had sent him to wait for her little sisters) and hatched a plan. "Actually, I have another question... what would you think about a road trip?"


	80. Chapter 80: Bachelor's Night Part II

_thank you so much! And thank you for the Highclere nominations! Note in comments  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Friday Night<strong>

** June 20, 1919**

"I want to see the seaside," Edith declared with her characteristic blend of earnestness and enthusiasm. "And I want you to take me there!" Liam responded to this with much the same face as Matthew had to her church tour proposition; even though she was not interested in him as she had been Matthew, it was disheartening. Men never seemed to meet _her_ harebrained ideas with the _isn't-she-simply-the-most-marvelous-creature-in-the-universe_ expression Branson had when he peered through the window at his marvelous Sybil (ever-observant, Edith had been the only one in the family who noticed the chauffeur's not-so-stealth presence) in her marvelous, ridiculous trousers. It had started very early for those two. When would it start for someone and her?

Liam, for his part, didn't know what to make of this girl, the Lady Edith, in a beige tailored coat and hat that her mother almost certainly chose, swinging her pocketbook behind her. As a pratical matter, coastal trains ran infrequently after dark and he told her so. "Oh, not by_ train, __that would take forever,_" she replied with a titter. "We'll take the car, of course." Edith pointed down the block at an inconspicuous black car with a conspicuous chauffeur.

According to Sybil, her father had forbidden the girls from venturing out of the hotel. Liam was intrigued. "Why?" he asked. "What's so important?" Edith demurred. "I doubt Tom and Sybil will want to leave."

"No, no- not them, just us," Edith said quickly. "It'll be our secret."

Liam put his hands on his hips and regarded the car. "Our secret, huh? Fine," he consented. Like many youngest children, Liam Branson was a reliable co-conspirator. And like most young men, he liked cars. That was a very nice car- a top of the line, new model. "I'll drive."

"No, you won't," Edith laughed. "_I'll _drive."

* * *

><p>Edith held her hat as they ran to the car. "Up, up, man!" Fitz, dozing under his cap, was startled awake by Liam cajoling him out the right side as Edith slipped into the driver's seat from the left; in the span of a minute, he found himself deposited on the pavement with a coin in his hand- <em>go in and have a drink, <em>_my brother's getting married tomorrow-_ while Edith revved the engine, assuring him that whatever happened _don't worry, my father's good for it __through the window._ "Milady, I must protest-"

"Sorry, no time to talk!" she called as the car lurched forward. Liam jumped in the passenger side. "See you later, Fitz!"

Liam waved to the displaced chauffeur, then directed Edith to make a left at the end of the street. She did, almost clipping a taxicab, which accelerated and swerved to avoid her. "Watch out!" The cabbie blared his horn.

"Oh, pipe down," Edith muttered. Edith, oddly, was never bothered by slights on the road as she had great confidence in her own driving ability. Liam not so much.

"You_ have_ driven in a city before, haven't you?"

"First time for everything?"

"Whoa, wh- Tram! Tram!" Liam sputtered. The tram thundered by and nearly clipped them.

"I saw it," Edith said, as she calmly switched lanes. "God- jumpy, aren't you?"

"You were _on the tracks_!"

"And I got _off_ the tracks in plenty of time." So what if she had slammed the accelerator to do it. "If you don't like how I drive, take it up with your brother!"

"I will, if I live." His adrenaline from the near-collision started to wane and he couldn't help but laugh. "I didn't realize a road trip with you was an existential proposition. Maybe you're a British assassin."

Edith took it as a compliment. "Maybe I am," she murmured. If Sybil could be a Fenian _with a fake accent_, why couldn't she be a British secret agent? That would make quite a novel- two sisters on opposite sides of the revolution, deceiving everyone, even each other. _Maybe I will be. _

* * *

><p>"Where's Edith?" But as soon as the question escaped Sybil was swept up in another bit of banter with Michael and the other Michael over who was better to explain soccer to her; this was in accordance to the law Sybil had experienced as a debutante and a nurse, that any number of men around a woman must by nature compete for her attention. The groom was left to stand aside with his arm on the back of the booth. His girl was doing grand on her own and it was wonderful to watch others see her for the first time as he had all those years ago, so curious and buoyant. The one who could always lift him, like a hot-air balloon and he'd never come down, just let the world turn under their feet.<p>

That is how it felt, but that is not how it _was_.

This present lightheartedness was, in some sense, a show, a performance of _how she used to be_ and _what we might have been_ if she'd been born down the street and there had been no War, and she and he had never left. But that is not how it was _if it had been there would be no_ _us_. There was no weight in her laughter, nor history in her words; they all believed they were getting to know her but she had revealed nothing. She was excellent at shape-shifting, _giving the appearance of, _and he must remember that even in the difficult times, even on the difficult truths, the ones he would rather not see about them, about himself.

It was this thought that Mick interrupted. He was the most reticent of the group, and the one Tom had known longest. "She couldn't resist your Irish charm, eh?"

Tom chuckled. "Something like that."

"Daughter of the house," Mick marveled with a shake of his head. "Tommy Branson and his wild ambitions, always." From the way he said it, it sounded like Mick assumed the "house" was a country seat like the manor where Tom had been apprenticed, Sybil the daughter of a barrister or merchant; Tom didn't correct him. "You two staying up at your mam's?"

This was the expectation for newlyweds, while they saved. "Actually, as luck would have it," Tom refuted carefully, "we're set up in a place."

"Oh?" Mick didn't hide his surprise. "Whereabouts?"

"A bit farther south." Like- where? _St. __Michan's_? _North King area_? _ You have people around there, don't you? _ until Tom finally admitted it was the south side of the Liffey, the fashionable side, which he explained with, "The newspaper's very fair to its workers."

"Employees," Mick corrected in a neutral voice. "Journalists aren't workers, you're employees."

_You're_. "What about you?" Tom changed the subject. "Ready to settle down?"

"Would." Mick's gaze moved to Sybil and Tom saw a flash of loneliness. "Can't, really." He said he'd been blacklisted by a foreman who had since relocated to Wales, but the mark on his name remained. Work was unsteady; what he could find paid badly. Tom asked why he didn't leave Dublin. "Leave Dublin?" _Sure_, Tom said._ Try your luck in a new city._ "I'm from Dublin," was Mick's answer. And that was the end of that.

_Jesus. _He and Sybil weren't fixed like that, not to country or even family and friends. To each other, but that was all. _That's the difference._ They could become anyone, anywhere because they _had. _The power of self-determination.

Tom didn't know what to say- what could one advise against _I'm from Dublin_?- and so he put a hand on Mick's shoulder with a pat, "You'll be alright."

"Well, I won't starve," Mick returned, a thankful expression in Ireland, _it could indeed be worse. "_Thank God for apple carts, eh?"

* * *

><p>Edith jerked the brake. The car squealed a halt. "We're lost."<p>

"We're not lost."

"Really?" They were in the middle of a desolate road; the last sign of life was three miles back. "Which way is the sea?"

"East, obviously"

Edith clapped her hands on the wheel. "And which way is that!"

But Liam didn't drive and didn't know; the train line ran along the coast). "Can't you read the stars?" She scoffed. "You were raised in the wilds," he defended the proposition. "Your _lawn_'s wider than this!"

She opened her mouth to reply and the realization landed. "When were you at my house?" Last spring, he said. "Why?"

"Ah, well..." Liam sheepishly rubbed his neck. "I suspected my brother had gotten mixed up with some English girl and I wanted him to ditch her and come back to Dublin."

Liam didn't know how Edith would take that revelation, but she laughed. "You would have been very welcome. You and Lord Grantham were comrades-in-arms!"

* * *

><p>Cooley distributed the whiskey shots- "<em>Slainte<em>, this here's from Andrews"- a tall man who saluted from across the room. _How many people does he know in this pub? _Sybil wondered. This was the fourth toast in a row and Tom was already wobbly. He was running his hand through his hair with increased frequency, proof she was not the only doubting the fortitude of his liver.

When the publican came with another congratulatory tray he took a cue from Sybil's remonstrating stare and decided to save Tom with the offer of a snug and a little premartial canoodling. Sybil didn't even care that the lads hooted, knowing where they were headed and why. She grabbed Tom's hand and dragged him away.

* * *

><p>Eventually they happened upon the Kingstown Arms, a hole-in-the-wall where a row of capped, sweater-clad old men sat in library silence. Liam stated their request, the publican's eyes narrowing into menace. "You've come here to ask us," he chewed and spit each word, "about a honeymoon spot for your brother and sister?"<p>

"_His_ brother, _my_ sister," Edith chimed in. "We're not related. And neither are they, of course."

They waited. The old men absorbed this without expression. The publican muttered a diparaging comment about _Dublin jackeens._ Liam smartly kept his mouth shut, and turned his attention to the register. When he turned back, it was with a rudimentary map sketched on a napkin. They thanked him and went to leave.

"Wait." One ancient man stood up and hobbled toward Edith. "You're English?"

_Crikey. _She'd forgotten herself. _"_I am."

"My son served in the War." He removed his cap and held it over his heart. Edith murmured words of gratitude- what else was there to do? He offered no further details, nor any recognition of Liam.

Outside, she asked Liam what that was all about. "Not all Irish are like the Bransons."

* * *

><p>Tom was in the tactile phase of inebriation, touching her clothes, the ends of her hair, drawing her closer in the tiny booth. Sybil was happy to savor these final forbidden hours, lips parting to his, but his heart was distracted by the thoughts running through his mind. "What is it?" she asked. "Tell me."<p>

"_He's a son of the northside, born in Killarney Parade."_

She didn't know. And he didn't know how to begin to explain how it felt to come back changed.

"_I'm from Dublin," _Mickey had said and Tom had thought _that's an excuse_. They were born into the same lot- but Tom became an apprentice, Tom chased better prospects to England. And now Tom the socialist, Tom _born in Killarney Parade_ found himself reflexively blaming the poor, his childhood friend, and admonished himself for it. Who the hell was he?

He hadn't said a word yet to Sybil, whose face was twisting into worry.

He stroked her cheek with his knuckle, the soft skin recalling his mother's first verdict- "_She is too beautiful_"- and also its meaning._ Too precious. Too valuable,_ for you, for here. _Hers is not one of the disposable lives._

No, it wasn't and everyone she encountered knew it; she exuded it, an innate self-worth, a doggedness in the pursuance of dreams that had even exasperated Gwen. She was worth fighting for- he and her father (and her sisters and her failed suitors) may disagree about what she should be, but _oh she will be something_. Watching his old friends with her tonight was like an out-of-body experience. They didn't know any girls like her, someone _of value_. Make her smile or laugh and it could confer some value on them.

His younger self once fumbled with his hat under a stone arch. "_I've told myself and told myself you're too far above me, but..." _

And if she answered _yes, that's true, I am_? _You are no one and nothing to me._ Where would he stand then?

_Feck_, he'd be in prison, in all likelihood.

But that's not what she answered, so now he has a nice flat in a good neighborhood and a bank account with Lord Grantham's money. What judgment ought to be rendered on _him_?

Liam would never be bothered by these questions_. Feck it,_ he'd say. _ _You live your life, _they live theirs. There aren't any comparisons or lessons. It is what it is._

He took Sybil's hand. Never in his life had he felt more favored or more important in the world than that night when he'd done the same in Liverpool, although he suspected that would change tomorrow. _It's good to have a purpose_, he thought. _Her. Us._

And he told her.

"Killarney Parade is a tenement. A slum. As bad or worse as the one we drove through your first day in Dublin," he confessed, the stench and her horror vivid in his mind. He found he couldn't quite look at her and lolled his head back on the wood bench. "Once, a man died in the hall. We couldn't leave the flat because there was a dead man blocking the door. It was three days before the city finally got around to collecting the body. We weren't exactly a priority."

Sybil did not want to think of any child, but especially not him, in such a situation but his tone warned her off pearl-clutching; at any event, she had few left to clutch after her own grim acquaintance with dead flesh. "How old were you?"

"Six. I couldn't go to school." Her hand squeezed tighter but _bless her _she said nothing. "There you are- what it means to be trapped by your circumstances," he added drily. "It's no way to live."

"No," she murmured in agreement.

He sat up, turned to face her now. "Every day, I think about our life, how it can be better. I'll do whatever I have to. If we need money, I'll find extra work or a second job or we'll move, but we'll never be _stuck_."

"We _won't_." She took his other hand and, after a moment of consideration, asked, "Why didn't you tell me then, that first day?"

"Shame I suppose," though he didn't want it to be because people _in this pub, right now_ would be going home there tonight. "I didn't want you to think less of me. Or expect less."

She hinted a smile. "I think the world of you, Tom Branson, with your talents and smarts, and I expect the world from you. Your past won't get you off easy with me."

* * *

><p>They found a honeymoon spot that was perfect for her sister and his brother and, their mission accomplished, headed back to Dublin. The drive was uneventful and peaceful over the dark moonlit curves with the stars out. Liam breathed in the peaty air. "I never come out to the country."<p>

"Country?" Edith repeated, eyes on the road. "We're fifteen minutes from Dublin."

_Oh, but it's different_, Liam impressed. This was the Ireland of lore, of history- the unspoiled Ireland Sinn Fein's speechwriters tried to conjure, the Ireland the revolution hoped to restore. "What can I say? I'm overcome by the romance."

He half-chuckled, softly, truthfully, as if amazed by his own naivete- this was Irelandafter all- and reclined further, in a way no man should in her presence, knees akimbo, elbow on the door. It implied an intimacy they did not share that, if deliberate, was brazen or rude or both. Edith wondered what would it be like to not be self-consciousness, to _not care about all that _like Sybil, like Tom and Tom's brother. "Is it romantic?"

"'Tis." Liam sat up then and, animated, pointed into the distance. "See there? Those are the Wicklow mountains where the rebels of '98 and Dwyer and Emmet hid out." His father had told them those stories, he said, and he and Tom played rebels and redcoats as boys. "They just... vanished. As if Erin herself had taken them in her arms and sheltered them."

Edith showed a wry smile before she reminded him, "I'm pretty sure we executed most of them."

"Aye, true." Liam appreciated that she owned her history, didn't pretend these brave dead Irishmen were not terrorists in her canon. "But Emmet came down for a woman, his fiancee. Don't put that on Erin. It was his Irish heart that did him in."

They swapped a look across the shadows, the same certain foolhardy betrothed couple on their minds. "Would you?" Edith asked.

"What?"

"Come down for your sweetheart."

"My sweetheart hit me in the face today so..." If she only _wanted_ him to- would she want him to? "Ah, feck it. I probably would." Edith found that preposterous. "You wouldn't?"

"Absolutely not. I wouldn't be much use to him dead, would I?" Liam protested that her answer was very calculated, _very British_, and very unbelievable that she would be impervious to love's pull. It was a spirited debate, all in fun, until he mentioned _destiny _and didn't she believe in it? And Edith realized: destiny was death. Death was destiny. That was Ireland's story; there was no other story to tell. _History is also written by the defeated, _the stories they have to tell themselves. The British army chased up a mountain, forced to hide in a bush was preposterous; the British Empire undone by one lovesick folly was preposterous. But that was the last stand for Free Ireland before 1918_. _"Do you hate us?" she asked suddenly.

Liam shifted in his seat. "You, personally?"

"The British." Edith didn't pull punches. "British people."

"Before, I _would've_ said yes," Liam answered slowly, "but no. Not anymore." She asked why, which no one ever did. Because hatred was a bad foundation to build a country on. A family too. "You and I will be aunt and uncle to the same children someday. It would become pretty complicated, hatred, don't you think?"

It was a rhetorical question. But Edith replied, "I'm here, aren't I?"

* * *

><p>There was a short warning knock and the snug window to the bar opened- "Oh no, please, no more," Sybil pleaded- but the publican's offer was only a large white box tied with a bow. <em>For the bride from her husband<em>, arranged tonight because she might want it for tomorrow. "For the wedding?" Tom demurred with a cheeky shrug. "For... afterward?"

"One way to find out. Open it," he urged. Her face tilted down in a frown. "C'mon- you won't be embarrassed. Would I do that to you?"

Sybil was embarrassed, though not by immodesty. She'd spent his confession sitting on her hands, resolving to swiftly end anyone who ever mistreated him, and now she had to tell him, "But I don't have anything for you."

_Ah, sweetheart... _"I told you so you'd know," he said. "I wasn't singing for your sympathy. And certainly not your pity."

Her mouth fell open. "I would never think you pitiful."

"Good! Go on then." He smiled at her. "You protest too much."

"That's what you _like_ about me," she muttered as she set to his request. The present was very nicely wrapped- not that she would expect any less- and she told him so. She pulled out the tissue paper and found inside... a snow-white linen tunic.

_Huh. _

It wasn't negligee and it wasn't quite a nightgown. "Keep going," Tom instructed, looking very self-satisfied. More paper, then a blue twill tunic that tied in the back. And a vest that tied in the front. And then...

_pants! _

Three matching pairs of pants. "How wonderful!" She mentioned that she'd seen in the magazines men's pajama sets for women.

"They're not," he grinned. "Those are real, honest-to-God womens' trousers." _Smocks_, he said. He'd seen a young lady sketching in them on Ushers Quay; all art students were allowed to wear them, apparently. "She was very impressed with herself," he smirked. "Not me. You were doing that _years _ago!"

They seemed comfortable and versatile, he said, she could wear them to bed or around the house or _out in town if you feel like kicking up some dust. _"Or on a wedding night?"

"Sure, why not?"

Tom didn't know it, but that was her one unfinished task for tomorrow, having blown her Parisian boutique debut in Liverpool. Her department store trips in Dublin had horrified her. Gaudy, awful get-ups with satin and bows _no no no that's not- _Moving around the racks, she'd heard Mama's voice from London, on her bed at Grantham House, the scar above her temple still not quite healed, the tension between them not quite resolved,_ I fear I haven't served you well_, Mama's voice shaking as she spoke. _I just don't want you to be disappointed_.

When the high faded of being asked to dance and she became aware of how the young men were looking at her- at her not _to_ her, never to her- she felt what Mama had failed to protect her from. She hadn't meant in her season, but in the world and her place in it. In her _life_.

Disappointment interrupted by a telephone call and the chauffeur taking her hand and the rest was history.

Of course, Tom would say she saved herself, _that's up to you, _she had flown was awaiting her reaction now, restored to himself and his purpose, Killarney Parade and the past no more present than last night's bad dream and she wanted to kiss him as fiercely as she ever had. _"_Do you like it? They're a little plain for your taste, but-"

"I love it. Thank you." The box slid as she embraced him. "Thank you so much."

* * *

><p>Two hours after they disappeared, Edith and Liam re-entered the pub. The lads were as they left them, Fitz was at the bar, but Tom and Sybil were nowhere to be found. "Surely she didn't leave?" But the publican inclined his head with a twinkle in his eye. <em>Ah<em>. Liam understood. Edith was not amused by this coded communication. "I want to know where my sister is," she stated flatly.

_In the snug_, Liam told her (whatever that meant). He led her to a three-quarter-size door which opened to a private booth and ordered two pints. "But where are Sybil and Tom?"

_All over each other_? "Don't worry. I'm sure they don't miss us."

"We've been gone for awhile- I need to find my sister. You said they were here."

"They're in their own private booth- you know, _private_," he spelled out as if she didn't know.

Edith rolled her eyes. "Gee, whatever for?" The drinks came. The publican asked if she was having fun, if Liam was showing her a good time. "I am rather and yes. He is." The publican closed the window with a wink. They were alone.

This_ is how it starts_, Edith realized.

Sybil and Tom were never alone- until, one day, they were. Opportunity arose and her sister had seized it- and one little kiss led her to Dublin and a new life. That kiss had been a ship, a time machine, a fortune-teller. That is what she was thinking when Liam asked what was on her mind. And without a word, Edith pressed her mouth to his.


	81. Chapter 81: Bachelor's Night Part III

_thanks as always!  
><em>

* * *

><p>No one in the family would believe it, but Edith was the first Crawley sister to be kissed. In the summer of 1906, when she was twelve and Patrick fourteen, she asked for a kiss on the cheek and, already infatuated, simply turned her face. He leapt back, mortified by his own indiscretion, until she beamed at him and he realized she'd done it intentionally. She was never predictable to Patrick. Relieved, with a shaky smile, he sat back down. And to her surprise, <em>he<em> kissed _her_, so barely-there that she could feel the summer breeze between their lips.

It had happened at the ruined arch behind the estate, where she had scratched his initials on the underside of a stone slab, where for years she visited daily and now sometimes less.

* * *

><p>Edith's most recent kiss had been John the farmer, with his awful breath (not his fault- dentists were a luxury) that the strong, bitter beer he drank could never quite neutralize. John kissed like a man who had only ever kissed his wife and also like a man starved for affection. She supposed that was the attraction, a person more desperate than she was to connect, to be desired. And she had wanted the practice so that if she ever got the chance...<p>

"_Oh-_"

She gasped- or moaned- a half-buried treasure deposited on his tongue. Liam drew back, face and question serious. "Was that alright?" She must have smiled because he teased, "You won't blacken my other eye?" The lowness of his voice and the rush of the encounter pushed her back to his mouth without a word.

No one in the family would believe it, but Edith was a person who took her chances. Perhaps because, unlike her sisters, she didn't get all that many. But if Mary could tempt a Turkish rake to deflower her down the hall from Mama and Papa, if Sybil could run away to Ireland and make unmarried love with Branson in a Dublin slum, then Edith could French kiss a man who was attached to someone else in a snug.

Liam tasted like stout- and peppermint. _Devil. _Clearly, he'd anticipated a romantic encounter. With his sweetheart? A stranger? One of the bold, local girls at the bar? _Or... _

He kissed like a man who had kissed _a lot_ of women, an unhurried, tactile exploration; a sensory experience, like good wine- taken slowly at first, then more liberally as inhibitions were lulled, limbs were loosened, truths were unlocked. His advance just now was unanticipated, but very much not unwelcome. John had tried and (she had suspected so at the time) had failed miserably. She let Liam lead and mimicked his movements (her class made him assume this was coquetry, not inexperience). There were no false expressions, no stupid endearments, just her face with his, shave-softened and scented with too much imitation Bay Rum. It reminded her of luggage porters and wait-staff. She didn't know if that thought was fact or prejudice; she kissed him still.

"You've done this before," he speculated. "You're _good_ at this."

"Am I?"

He heard it as confidence, a bait for praise, and his smile widened, dark blue eyes unwavering as he returned,"_Yes."_

* * *

><p>"I've never kissed a Lady," he noted at one point.<p>

"We're even then, because I've never kissed a Fenian."

He chuckled and shook his head; _F__enian_ was at best an anachronism about a pre-Famine independence movement, at worst a slur- because, as she noted in the car, they'd executed most of them. "Lady Edith, we haven't had Fenians in Ireland in half a century."

* * *

><p>Liam had kissed a lot of women and he kissed Edith- kissed Edith <em>back,<em> rather- for the usual reasons: he liked girls and it felt good. Yes, he was attached to someone else, but he had always been able to separate heart, mind, and body- though Clare had been challenging that of late.

He had learned from his brother to keep the company of women. He supposed that came from their nurture- in their household, Da was all the vices, Mam all the virtues. And he learned (from his brother's more reckless youth, before he became committed to Sybil) that physicality could provide a window into a person and her life. He had never kissed a Lady or even known one before Sybil. He didn't socialize with any Brits and his well-off university friends were all from self-made Catholic families. He had expected to make tortured, stilted small-chat with Lady Edith tonight. He had not expected a road trip, or for her to drive. He had not expected her to ask sophisticated questions about Ireland or have any self-awareness about Britain's colonial power. Edith was well-versed in current events and easy to talk to. And also-

"Your hair is beautiful," he said, as he laced a cooper curl around his thumb. "But I confess, I have a weakness for fair-haired women."

Edith smiled dryly. No one ever described her as _beautiful_, not ever, not even her parents; her deficiency, if everyone else in the world was to be believed, was that she had not inherited her mother's looks. "Most people prefer my sisters."

Liam laughed. "Is that how Englishwomen take a compliment?"

"I couldn't say. I don't have the practice with them." It was a sharp reminder that they did not know each other's stories, which Liam respected, and of blonde Clare, who Edith had seen briefly at Mrs. Branson's. And on that point-

Liam hadn't considered that kissing Edith had created the conditions for a confrontation with Clare. "Uh, she'll be there tomorrow. Clare. She and Sybil are friends and -"

"Liam. I _know,_" Edith cut him off at the start. Granted, it wasn't as snivelling and desperate as John's _Golly, __if my wife ever- _but still. "I won't mention it."

He had to ask, "Not even to Sybil?"

_Definitely not to Sybil_ after Edith had berated her about her conduct and lack of respect for other people's feelings- though that was _our parents _and Clare was no one to her. Additionally, Edith doubted that her sister, the self-proclaimed free-thinker, would find the concept of _no harm, no foul _applicable to fairly-innocent foolery with men who were not entirely free. "No, no. I wouldn't want to puncture her belief that she's the only one of us who ever breaks the rules."

Liam felt he had to communicate that he wasn't ashamed. "It's just that Clare can be..._ volatile_ and I wouldn't want her to, you know, smash the cake on my head and wreck the reception."

"Or liven it up." _Touche. _He smiled and Edith and propped a hand on her chin. "Are you in love with her?"

He stammered, then tried to deflect. "You didn't come here to talk about my girlfriend."

Maybe not, she conceded, "but you did say you'd come down the mountain for her and I don't think you'd say that about just anyone. I know I wouldn't." _And I know for whom I would_, the same soul for whom she always would have. It was still true. "Tell her," Edith advised. "The day could come when you won't have the chance."

* * *

><p>Unlike her sisters, Edith's romantic rebellion did not have a dramatic denouement, a dead diplomat or banishment. It simply ended, amicably, and Edith and Liam slipped back into the party about a minute behind Tom and Sybil who had no idea they were not the only ones who'd just been kissing in a snug. Sybil went immediately to her sister. "Hi."<p>

"Hello." Edith hoped her hair wasn't mussed and moved to preempt a query from Sybil with one of her own. "Where have you been?" _  
><em>

"Here," Sybil fibbed. "Around and about." Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Edith since well before she and Tom sneaked away. "Where have _you_ been?"

"Oh, the same." They gotten caught up chatting with some people Liam knew, Edith lied. _No, _she didn't catch their names._ No, _she didn't know how he knew them. _"_I'd point them out, but they just left."

Sybil's eyes narrowed. _You spent an hour chatting with people without learning who they were, where they were from, or where they worked_? "So what _did_ you talk about?"

Edith knew this was a test and it irked her that Sybil, who'd carried on surreptitiously with Branson _for years_, did not respect some kind of code of sneaks. But Edith had never been part of Sybil's secret society and anyway, Sybil was probably still mad about earlier. "We talked about... _Emmet_," Edith answered in a stroke of inspiration. "And the rebels in the Wicklow mountains."

On the eve of Versailles and possible international recognition of Free Ireland, Sybil- who had been privy to not one, but two conversations about Emmet today- found this entirely credible. "Ha! Sounds about right."

The piano player started to bang out an improvisational rendition of_ "_Let Erin Remember the Days of Old" in 2/4 time, which made everyone have to shout to be heard. Clare would be so mad- _Always with Tom Moore!_ she'd complain- and demand to hear some _popular _music. "Clare sounds... interesting," Edith ventured.

"She's a lot of fun. She'll make it a right party tomorrow." Sybil muttered something about _if Liam doesn't screw it up_. Sybil hadn't spoken to Clare, but she was strident and rather harsh in her opinion that the burden of fidelity fell on Liam. _As I thought. _What would Sybil think about Pamuk or, better yet, Tom's old flames? "How are you and Liam getting on?" Sybil asked. "He can be prickly."

Edith hoped to God she didn't give herself away. "Fine, thanks." Her gaze roamed and found him leaning on the wall. He saw her, saw Sybil, and showed nothing with a half-nod that she reciprocated- a code in _their _newly-formed secret society. _Sybil's not the only one who likes her secrets_. His identity and volatile girlfriend aside, Edith liked the line of his profile, liked how his hand hung lazily out of his pocket. She had never wanted to _do more _with a man- Mary's tryst with the Turk had repulsed her in its baseness; indeed, she prided her relationship with Anthony as the antithesis, focused on ideas, shared interests, _marriage_. She'd been too young with Patrick and John had provided absolutely no temptation. But now, at twenty-six and undeniably a woman, if foreign stranger knocked on her door, could she say what she would do? _Probably send him away. _But only probably. "I feel tonight's given me... a real feel for Ireland. And its people."

Sybil, protective of her new home (and the proxy it was for Tom, in the eyes of her family), perceived a slight in her sister's abstruse comment. "It's no Clandeboye." Sybil's tone left no doubt as to her opinion of the time spent and people met at Lady Dufferin's Northern Ireland estate.

"Certainly not, but different doesn't have to mean bad. At least, I don't think so." Sybil's brow arched. "Don't be insufferable," Edith smiled. "I'm sorry about earlier." Edith couldn't apologize for the words because she meant them but, "I shouldn't have ambushed you. You don't need that now."

Edith almost never felt like an older sister- Sybil never looked to her or needed her- but Sybil's palpable relief made it her feel so now. Maybe she didn't _need_ Edith's alliance, but God, there were a lot of enemies and doubters on the other side. _So much, so soon. _Sybil was twenty-one, as old as Edith had been when she dashed off the letter that had permanently altered Mary's future without a scope of the consequences or that her own wrath would subside. As old as Edith had been when she thought she was in deep with Anthony, but seeing Sybil with Tom – here, now- proved how early down the road they'd been. Her sister and Tom had a fully-formed life- a flat with rent due, an accounts book, money strain, tensions with in-laws, career ambitions. And that was just on the surface. Underneath, in the intricacies and nuances of a relationship: the constant uncertainty sex introduced, the questions it forced a couple to confront; a minor flare-up over lipstick, surely not the only time Branson's endorsement of female emancipation would be rattled by his own emancipated wife. _So much so soon _indeed. But Sybil was a born fighter, that's what Papa always said, back when it was praise.

"Let's not be cross with each other. Not tonight." Edith laid a hand on Sybil's arm- the most affection they ever showed each other outside of farewells and funerals. "You're getting married tomorrow."

What Sybil knew about Edith, that almost no one else did, was how incredibly generous she could be. Edith wanted to be married- wanted to be married in 1914- and currently had no prospects to realize that aspiration. Edith didn't approve of either Sybil's choice of a husband or their wedding plans. And yet, _You're getting married tomorrow _could not have been spoken more sweetly or sincerely. To truly wish the best of the outcome you actively did not want... well, Sybil- who fumed about Dr. Clarkson's decisions and fulminated about Papa's antediluvian edicts- doubted she had it in her. "I did want you to come tonight and I'm so glad you did," Sybil told her. "I hope you had fun and it wasn't too, uh, _Fenian._"

"I had a wonderful time," Edith replied with a grin. "But Sybil, you really shouldn't say that- there haven't been Fenians in Ireland in half a century!"

* * *

><p>It was time to leave. Another drink and he'd be on the floor. He'd already catch hell from his mother for the late hour and if he didn't stop now, he'd catch it from his wife at the church tomorrow.<p>

_Today. _

It was after midnight. It was today.

Tom was drunk in part because every whiskey and beer came with some awestruck comment about Sybil- how delightful they found her, despite their own preconceived notions about her "sort." _Gorgeous too, isn't she_? he'd started to respond because of course it was in all of their minds, _on all of their faces_, but it would have been inappropriate to express to her fiance. In one sober moment, he swirled his drink in the tumbler and thought he would be quite happy spending his life accepting compliments on behalf of his wife.

_It's today, _the publican announced it when the clock struck twelve, he rang the bell, and the piano tinkled "The Wedding March" _there won't be any musicians tomorrow, in the cellar chapel _he'd tried to say he was so sorry about that but she'd stopped him _Tom the whole pub wants us to kiss, so do it. Kiss me_. And he did- so well, the publican humorously censured him _N__o more of that, lad, until you make an honest woman of her._

He swayed when Liam put his arm around his shoulders- "I think our work here is done," the best man chuckled- but he spied Sybil, too far away, with her sister. She smiled at him, bit her lip and looked down. He didn't take his eyes off her- _oh, the past _and his favorite past-time, which had sustained him all those years. When Edith's head tilted to the side, she looked up and winked at him. He heard the sentiment- _o__h, the future and all the years __to come._

* * *

><p>"Come back to the flat." They were up against the brick wall on the back side of the bar, his arms behind her to protect her coat from any dirt, and it was the third time he asked. "I want you," he pressed without inhibition. "I want you and I love you and I want to love you."<p>

"I want you too," she murmured back, hot on his mouth. "Oh God, I do." She never talked like that even in the bedroom but _God_, he could feel how much she meant it, despite her next words. "But I can't. The car-"

The car was waiting with her sister in it; they had told Edith and Liam they'd only be a minute. "Come for an hour," he persisted, "and I'll take you in a taxi back to the hotel."

She looked down to where his hand, inside her coat, was settled on her breast, then back up at him. "And you'll be the one to explain why to Mary?"

_That_ was a mood-killer. Tom relaxed back, steadied himself on the wall as desire-and-alcohol-doped blood coursed through him. "I should... go to bed."

"Good idea." Sybil kissed him quickly, but her hands hovered around the button of his braces. "But I do like your bargaining with me," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "I'll be a Dublin girl yet."

But first, she'd be his wife- to tease, to love, to laugh and have adventures with- a perfect partner and he could not wait to start their life with her. "You're terrific, you know. Everyone thinks so. _I_ think so." He pulled her into his arms, which she helpfully pointed out probably would not help his... predicament. "I don't care," he exhaled. "Oh darlin', never leave me. I couldn't bear it."

"I never would- I never _could_," she promised.

He kissed the top of her head. "You feeling alright about it all?"

She was. Edith had apologized. Her sisters, his family had come around to them as much as could be expected in a month. Clare and Erich would on hand tomorrow ease tensions and keep spirits up. And as for everyone else... "As you said, it's our day that we've waited for. Let's make it wonderful."

He smiled down at her. "Head up and walk proud down that aisle tomorrow, hmm?" Tom had worried far more than she had about the empty seats, the conspicuous absences, twelve steps that could feel interminable taken alone, under everyone's eyes. _We should walk in together, who cares about the convention- what about us is conventional? _She assured him she would be fine. "Don't dwell on any of that. Just come to me, love. I'll be waiting."

Sybil laughed softly. "Some things never change."


	82. Chapter 82: Early June 21, 1919

_Next: THE WEDDING! You've only had to wait as long as Tom waited for Sybil- yikes. Sorry about that._

_On that note: thank you. for reading, for staying, for sharing your thoughts, for remembering details from chapters posted, literally, years ago. Thank you for taking the time to vote in the Highclere Awards and thank you to the people who run the Highclere Awards (especially shana-rose and sakurasencha). Congrats to all!  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire<strong>

Cora did not sleep.

For the first time, she was without all of her children. She'd been separated from them before, but only when she and Robert had left for London or a private holiday. Now, the girls had left them. Sybil _how is possible that Sybil is about to be married _and Mary next and Edith at some point... And then what? She didn't have hobby horses like Isobel- her cause, her sole passion, was her daughters.

She had sent Robert to his dressing room, unable to stand his incessant efforts at small talk- the staff, the grounds, his dog- misdirection to distract her from her depression. In the abstract, she could concede his points about _inappropriate _and _awkward_ and _actions have consequences, she must learn that _but in the dark and silent pre-dawn, a sea apart from her child, Cora swallowed a primal scream. She is _our daughte_r. This is _her wedding_. This was time that, once lost, could never be regained.

_Actions _do_ have consequences_. And if Robert, doomed to be a terminal victim of his own shortsightedness, didn't think there would be consequences for his escalation of hostilities with Sybil-

"_I will go. And you'll be sorry_."

Not as much a threat as a prophesy. Like her husband, she had been stunned by that harsh expression. Unlike her husband, she knew Sybil meant it.

Cora Crawley was no feminist, as the newspapers called them, but she did believe that every act of aggression from her daughters- her bright, substantial, indomitable little women- was a perfectly reasonable response to a world that was wholly and unfailingly unreasonable toward them.

But the world _was,_ and her charge as a mother was to help her daughters survive in it.

Over the years, Cora had been confronted many times by her daughters' caretakers: Mary was too willful, Edith too precocious, Sybil too spirited. _"We must break them of it,"_ she was always told. And they were taken aback when this doormat, this classless, noveau riche American mother would respond, with a sharpness that could cut glass,_ "___I don't want my children broken." __She wanted them as they were born- perfectly, exquisitely whole.

Mary and Edith had been snatched from her upon arrival by the gnarled arms of duty and history, resettled into a matrix of nurses and nannies, of castles and distant cousins, of titles and traditions. Cora's world was that of Mary Cassatt, of Mark Twain, of helping her father behind the counter at his store; her dear, departed father whose own people had abandoned Old Europe a century earlier and wouldn't understand any of this.

By August of 1895, Cora had wised up. She was an immigrant no more, not an isolated new wife nor a scared new mother. When her third daughter was placed in her arms, she remained there.

She wondered how the girls were getting on. If Mary was being nice and inclusive to Edith, if Edith was being positive and helpful. If Sybil was finding lulls in her conversations with her older sisters that had never been there before.

The few banal lines in Mary's telegram provided insufficient answers to those questions and the fears being stoked by the British newspaper editorials, openly clamoring for Lloyd George to carpet-bomb Dublin before the ink dried on the Treaty next Saturday. Sinn Fein's petition would fail, surely, but Ireland must be made to pay for the attempt. Only the _Manchester_ _Guardian _sensibly pointed out that the bloodthirst of their supposed British protectors was exactly what the Irish citizenry needed international protection from. She wondered if Sybil would be considered an Irish citizen in a wobbly Irish state or was she destined to be forever a stranger in a strange land?

She wondered about Sybil and what the future held for her.

Robert's verdict echoed-_ "T___his is what comes of spoiling her___"- _and there was truth in it: Sybil didn't respect rules or restraints, she wanted to be her own master. She lied and schemed and deceived in the pursuit of what she wanted- so had Branson, __so they have that in common___. _But their daughter was no pushover and when provoked, she had proved demonstrably cruel and unfair._ "___Lock her up until she ___dies___?" __ her gobsmacked, wounded Papa had repeated. __ "If we were such jailers, how was she able to carry on with Branson all these years right under our noses?___" _Now, perhaps her behavior was circumstantial, not characteristic, but as her father had pointed out, "__She has no idea how easy she had it here."__

She wondered about Branson.

When Robert's effort to bribe Branson (sparked by Carson's reveal "_there's no father in the family, my Lord, and half his pay is sent home" _when Robert went downstairs to read Branson's personnel information) was unsuccessful, his next move was to discredit him. __Did you know your daughter's fiance is the son of a drunkard and a reprobate? __Robert had sent Branson's recommendation letters to Murray_- ___Don't look at me like that, he's about to marry my daughter I'll be damned if it's with his story hidden- __whose inquiries had unearthed a 1908 court record in Shannon for Michael Branson, imprisoned two years for theft and assault. After his release, he worked intermittently as a convict-laborer at a quarry. On July 1, 1911 he entered Ellis Island with a stated destination of Baltimore. There was no record of him after_ that. ___So that should bode well. Your daughter chooses for her husband a penniless, Papist, Marxist, revolutionary son of a criminal, a man who deserted his family. How proud you must be. __

Robert ranted like a jilted lover, a heart spurned_- ___I thought I could trust her- __how ridiculous, the expectation that a grown daughter would behave like a wife: docile, smiling, do what I say, never cross my authority. _Cheer up__, ___you might yet get the outcome you want,__ she had told him, only half a joke_. ___Sybil doesn't care what society thinks about an elopement, she won't care what it thinks about divorce. __

Even in June, it was cold with the fire out, without Robert in the bed. Cora wondered what the temperature was in Dublin, if the hotel room were cozy, and if Sybil had read her letter.

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<strong>

They were back at the hotel, in Edith's room. Sybil was dreamy and insular as the car rolled over the river, awash in street-light, to the Royal Hibernian Hotel, the finest in Dublin and the preferred choice of Westminster. Edith assumed her sister's thoughts were on the wedding, on Tom, but she was keeping to herself.

Edith's mind was also on thoughts she was keeping to herself. The events, her _choices_, of this evening made her feel daring and exhilarated, as she felt when driving, as Sybil surely felt almost all of the time.

_Does she ever wonder about me? w_as Edith's thought as she watched her sister shed her ready-made clothes in the span of two minutes and toss them on the bed; she supposed _if they are cheap and off a rack, you can do that. _Edith hadn't even rung for Anna. "I hate to wake her at this late hour."

"Then don't." Sybil came over to her sister- _poor Edith _still constrained by the hooks and laces of old. Nothing could ever make her live like that again. "I'll do it for you."

Sybil's hands worked rote from memory, as she unpinned and unthreaded neither with nor without care. When Sybil wrenched a stubborn hairpin free, Edith had to remind her with a yelp, _I can feel that! _Nurse Crawley had many talents, but bedside manner wasn't one of them; she cared about outcomes, the means did not interest her nearly as much as the ends. Edith was just the opposite. Once Edith had carried a message from Mama when Sybil was working the night shift and her sister had unlocked Dr. Clarkson's office and showed her the skeletons hanging on the walls. She breathlessly rattled off the tibula and the fibula, and the medicine bottles and the effect produced when this chemical was combined with that one. Edith never understood why bones appealed to her more than flesh-and-blood patients who had stories to tell.

It was an intimate posture Edith rarely found herself in with her sister, alone and- literally- stripped bare of pretense. Sybil said as much when she heard the all-too-familiar first deep inhale as the corset relaxed. "Say what you will about brassieres, at least I can breathe," she said. "I'd never let my daughter wear a corset. Bones are soft. I'm sure if you cut us open, you'd find we're bent in all kinds of places where nature intended us to be straight."

"Mama never wore one when she was girl," Edith reminded her, "but then she had daughters and she didn't want them to look like tomboy milkmaids."

"Granny bullied her into it, just as Granny said I couldn't do the Easter hunt because it wasn't proper that an Earl's daughter should run around like a 'loose hound.'"

"Yes, well, look at the results of her efforts." The sister traded a smirk in the mirror as Sybil set the last hairpin on the vanity table and wandered to the settee. This was an enormous suite, _the whole Branson home laid out could fit in here. _And separate quarters for Anna below. _Of course. _On the table next to the settee was a porcelain bowl filled with fresh oranges; they'd be thrown out Sunday when her sisters checked out, just as the previous dozen had been before they checked in. _Tom and Mickey used to nick apples from a cart_. Tom had once obliquely remarked, in the early years, that her house _looked different_ to him; half a decade of perspective later, she finally understood what he meant.

Edith searched her reflection for what Liam Branson had seen. _Your hair is beautiful _the copper waves split over her shoulders. The set of her mouth, a natural coral color of her lips, which he had kissed so ardently. She had never been pursued like that and curiosity trumped circumspection as she dared to ask, as casually as she could, "Does Tom kiss you the French way?"

Sybil's head whipped to Edith, who sat patiently . "Why?"

"It's only a question. Don't be so defensive."

"I'm not," she said, aware that was precisely how she sounded. But she had no idea what preconceived notions her inexperienced sister had of "the French way" or of a person who would kiss like that. "It's not _bad, _Edith."

"I never said it was." When Sybil still didn't answer, Edith elaborated, "I just wonder if it's the done thing here."

"I think it's the done thing everywhere." Sybil had expected this talk with Mary, not Edith. On one hand, she wanted to tell all _how else will she learn_; on the other hand, Mama would absolutely murder her if she found out and Sybil didn't want to bolster the slander that her relationship with Tom was tawdry. As ever, the rebel prevailed. "Yes, he does. And I kiss him the same way."

"Have you done more than kiss him?" _Yes. _Sybil confirmed Edith's suspicion, not without some embarrassment. "All of it?" _Y__es. "_More than once?" _Ye_s. "More than twice?" _ It's hard to stop_. Edith's next question surprised her. "Were you his first?"

"No. Nor did I expect to be." Edith could see Sybil bristle across the room. _She doesn't like that, no matter what she says. _Mostly Edith was interested in why it didn't bother her that John was married and Liam was taken; but it didn't seem like Sybil would be instructive on that. "Weren't you afraid of a baby?"

"Not afraid per se... But I was relieved when I wasn't." Edith was relieved too, not that it would stop the rumors. "I do want children, but perhaps not_ immediately_..."

"You want to be married, don't you?"

"Of course!"

"Then there's no way to avoid it," Edith said. "It comes with the territory."

_She doesn't know as much as she thinks. _"Maybe..." Sybil retrieved from her suitcase a small calendar and showed it to Edith. "It's a counting card. A girl I roomed with at nursing school kept one. You start when your monthly comes. The days without an X are safe," she explained.

Edith did a quick count of the boxes with Xs- "risk" days. "This can't be- one week a month? Only one?" Sybil had said the same to Hazel and she echoed Hazel's confidence now. "And it works?"

"I just started," Sybil said. "But my friend Clare- she's Liam's girlfriend- calls counting cards the proven method of Irish mothers." Edith snickered as Sybil continued, "However, I know that they _do_ and she's not, so..."

Edith, careful not to react to that revelation about Liam and Clare, returned her attention to the card; some of the X days were circled. "What do those circles mean?" Sybil's half-smile answered for her. "God, Sybil- well, it certainly won't work if you don't follow it!"

"There wasn't much risk," her little sister prefaced before she launched into a brief lesson about male anatomy.

"Sybil, that's disgusting."

Sybil laughed. "It's really not. You'll see."

Edith certainly would picture it the next time she saw Branson, which she supposed would be at the altar at the church. And on that note, it was time for bed. Sybil declined an invite to share with Edith and said she would sleep in Mary's room. "Sybil?" Her sister turned around at the door of the suite. "I'm glad I came tonight too. Who knows when we'll see each other again?"

"Edith, Dublin is than a day away."

"Yes, but you know what will happen." Edith plucked at her nightdress. "You'll come and stay at Haxby with Mary and have loads of couples' fun with Mary and Richard and I'll only see you for the odd afternoon of tea."

Sybil couldn't picture _couples' fun _with Sir Richard, but she took seriously Edith's worry that she and Mary would soon have a new bond between them that she didn't share. "I'm not sure Tom will be any more comfortable at home at Haxby."

"I don't know," Edith countered. "He and Richard are both in newspapers."

"_Not_ my kind_ of newspaper._" That was the first declaration Tom had made to her about Sir Richard Carlisle, whose two-pence tabloids had cheered every one of the 1916 executions. "_He's made a lot of money off Irish blood. England will never sleep safe so long as there are sensationalist, horse manure hawkers like him out there._" She had never seen him so fired up as when he railed about this perversion of journalism. He scoffed when Sybil feebly offered that his papers also exposed abuses against child mill workers. "A_nd the result? He made millions and the children now work on a floor with sprinklers. Lucky them!_" He would have kept on but the drive to the hospital only took five minutes.

"Richard's a muckraker," Sybil informed Edith. "And an owner. Tom would find little in common with him."

"He's one with the Crawleys in that." Branson as a brother-in-law was odd, but Richard as one was plainly awful, "Mary's the only one who can tolerate him it seems."

Sybil wondered if even that were true. "But on the subject of husbands, I think I have to remain neutral. Goodnight, Edith."

* * *

><p>Sybil tried creep soundlessly into Mary's room, but her eldest sister's clear, full voice pierced the dark. "I'm awake." The bedside lamp went on. "Despite the hour," she noted with severity. Sybil issued an impudent shrug which made Mary laugh. "I'm not cut out for house Mother. Did you have a nice time?"<p>

"Yes," Sybil whispered. "Turn that off."

Mary waited until Sybil made it to the opposite side of the bed before she complied and the room fell back into shadow. "Did Edith behave?"

"Yes, of course."

"Did _you_?" Mary teased.

Sybil smiled. "Against all urging."

"Not from Edith...?" The silhouette of Sybil's short hair shook as she admitted who it was. "Oh dear." Mary definitely did not want to hear what bad behavior Branson had in mind with her sister. "You reek of tavern- smoke and cheap liquor," Mary told her with some amusement. _Between that, __her boy's haircut, the brassiere and trousers... _"All you need is a pistol and you'll be ready for the O.K. Corral."

"Ooh, an American outlaw. I like that!"

"You would. I hope Edith wasn't a terrible stick-in-the-mud."

"Not at all- she had a lot of fun I think," Sybil relayed as she climbed into bed. "You should be kinder to her." Mary settled back on the pillows with a characteristic _hmmm. _"If I were a cowboy," Sybil speculated, "I'd be a better shot than our men, that's for damn sure!"

Mary laughed as she recalled the last hunt they'd been together with Papa and Matthew and some very bored retrievers. "Matthew is an awful shot, isn't he? Like, farcically bad."

It was Mary's second unsolicited mention of Matthew today and Sybil desperately wanted to probe, but she said only, "It's not his world. Who knows- perhaps it will be an attribute? Matthew the Merciful," she mused. "Britain could use more in power like that."

Mary twisted her hands on her lap; there was a novel in her silence, but not one she was ready to write. Her sister could certainly empathize with that. "Better beware," Sybil steered back to safe territory. "Irish women like their revolvers or so I am told by the British newspapers. I may not be content to stand behind the men anymore."

"I'll alert the birds back home."

"See that you do. Goodnight, Mary." The mist-shrouded hills of Yorkshire on a wet-leafed hunt day stayed in Sybil's mind as she slid down into the luxurious bed, _God how marvelous _after a month on a veritable plank at Mrs. Branson's, pulled the sheets, so cool and smooth on her limbs, around her and was pulled under by remembrance-

_Home._

It reminded her of home, comforting and familiar. But she didn't want to comforted by a place that represented the life and the values she had rejected, a place where her chosen husband was not welcome.

She must have startled because Mary asked what was wrong. _She's wearing Mama's cream_, Sybil recognized- when she was small, her mother had to inform her that she was not as naturally as fragrant as the garden in spring _but you are still that beautiful, Mama_- as she insisted it was nothing.

Sybil closed her eyes, but she did not sleep.

_We are on opposite sides in the world, _even her mother, even Mary, the person she was closest to besides Tom. But there was Tom, so...

Five weeks in Ireland and Sybil had not started to deal with her own dislocation. She pushed it aside, assumed it would work itself out. Life, she believed, was not unlike a hospital- mostly triage and improvisation, the theoretical thrown out the window for whatever the moment demanded.

She hadn't expected the moment to descend on her tonight, but now the questions crowded her mind: what would her relationship- hers and Tom's- with her family be like? with her sisters, _after _this anomalous weekend?

She could still love them, even if she hated what they stood for.

_Even if what they stand for is oppression of Ireland, a system that puts them on top and Tom on the bottom?_

She recalled Erich's comment, odd at the time when she thought her father had accepted their invitation to the wedding: "_The Emperor and his daughter can't agree to disagree that he wears no clothes_."

Ah. _This _is what he meant.

She was political. Even people who said they were not "political," were political. Politics was just what one believes- particularly about people who were not like themselves_._ People who claimed they were not political were supporters of the status quo.

She had once knocked on the door of a man who refused to support women's suffrage. He had told them, "_N__othing personal, I just don't believe in that_" to which a brave fellow canvasser had retorted, "_It's personal to us when you vote against our rights_!"

Killarney Parade. Moira's factory. Aileen's father, shot and killed in defense of the Realm. _Nothing personal._

_It is personal to me._

_Tom would never come to a place like this, _she realized in rebuke to her own earlier, silly fantasy of love-making in a lavish bed. "_They wouldn't let me in the door there_," he had said to her about the Royal Hibernian Hotel. Tom was at his mother's; there was nowhere else for him, she was one whose movement was restricted only by conscience and choice.

But what should she _do_?

Sleep on the floor in protest? That was stupid and and served no one_. _But the question of whether she had to disown her past- and how much- to be true to herself was harder to parse.

Mary heard when she blinked awake.

Really. Since the day Sybil was laid in the nursery, Mary had been her baby sister"s whisperer- standing like a sentry by the cot, intuiting and announcing her needs much to the annoyance of Nanny. She could always tell and she could tell now before Sybil even said her name. "Mary?"

"What is it, darling?"

"Will we still be friends when we're married?"

"Of course."

"No, I don't mean like that." Not _quarterly letters and Christmas cards_ friends, but _no space between us_ friends. _Friends a__s we have been. _Mary answered with a question of her own.

"Have we been friends?" Mary turned to Sybil; they had faced each other similarly in Mary's room on the eve of Sybil's departure, but much had been left unsaid. "Truly?" There had been a lot of secrets, a lot of experiences unshared these last years. _Here I am __ at your wedding and I can't even say how Branson proposed. _

They lay beside each other and contemplated, then Sybil voiced a decision she didn't realize she had made. "I don't know if I'll ever come back."

It was an entirely predictable possibility that nonetheless hit Mary like a punch in the gut. It was all going to change, wasn't it? "But you don't know," Mary repeated, "and that will have to do for now." She looked upward, found plaster and no sky_. _"It's just so bothersome isn't it," she began with a slight sarcasm that failed to conceal her fear, "not to know how it will all turn out?"

Nor could she stop the tears which were about much more than Sybil. A few slipped down, which Sybil confirmed in dark by reaching to touch her face (_only_ Sybil could get away with that). "Oh Mary..." Why _couples fun with Richard and Mary _had sounded so preposterous; Mary was miserable. "I wish it were Matthew."

Mary hastily wiped her cheeks. "Don't say that."

"Someone should."

"Fine, and now someone has." Mary sighed and shook her head. "It hardly matters now."

"Why not?" Sybil pressed delicately; if she didn't, who would? "Because of Lavinia? God rest her soul, but he'll recover, Mary. Please don't make a mistake before he does." She found her sister's hand and squeezed it. "You can break the engagement."

"I'm not you, Sybil. I don't want to be a source of speculation and rumor."

"I know but... this your whole life, Mary. Choose wisely. That's all I would say."

"Some advice from you."

Mary mustered a wry smile, which her little sister returned with a broad one. "I hope you know that after tomorrow, I'll consider it my right to opine on your life in all my married wisdom, just like Granny's smug old lady friends."

"I haven't lost you a moment too soon then," Mary retorted.

"You haven't 'lost me.' We will stay friends," Sybil resolved. She regarded Mary's hand, still in hers. Triage and improvisation. "I don't know quite how, but we will."

"We will try at least," Mary replied, "and that will have to do for now."


	83. Chapter 83: The Wedding Part I

_here we go!  
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* * *

><p>The day was only just dawning but the Reverend Sean Fahey had been at his desk for hours. He returned his pen to the inkwell beside the candle he worked by (for Romantic, not ascetic reasons) and surveyed his notes thus far:<p>

_Rejoice! the angels say, For today is a wedding day!_

_Two of God's children have found shared purpose in the love and care of each other and God Himself shall bind them._

_To the intended: be one in hope, one in desire, one in discipline, one in service to the Lord. _

_Be undivided in spirit and flesh; unity of flesh will yield unity of spirit. To seek that which is not your spouse, in any form, is to seek that which is not yourself. To betray your spouse is to betray yourself. To stray from your spouse is to stray from yourself and the way of the Lord. For it is not your spouse who compels your fidelity in spirit and flesh, it is your own vow that you now submit before God. _

_It is the intended who, baptized in Christ, confer the sacrament of marriage upon each other in their mutual consent and it sealed by God Himself. __The Church is a mere witness. The covenant between spouses can only be broken by God. From this day forward, you are and shall remain unto each other until returned to God._

_But on this happiest of days, a celebration of two lives made one, of new life yet to come, do not dwell on the sun's shadow, for it is in marriage, in the bond of love, that God prophesies Paradise.  
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He blew out the flame and listened.

The Reverend Sean Fahey liked the hushed quiet of the city in the wee hours, when its heaving struggles ceded to the shuddered breath of sleep. One could almost hear God before the day drowned Him out.

Almost_._

But it was a marriage day- not an Anointing, a Last Rites or a funeral- so there was that.

_A curious pair, them two_.

A lapsed Catholic and a Protestant from England. He couldn't even say _why_ he had agreed to marry them- they wouldn't even live in the parish, they had already let a flat on the south side- but despite his lack of a reason, he had agreed.

Maybe _he_ needed them.

He officiated hundreds of marriages a year; three just last week. _These two are at least in love_- there was that. When Mrs. Branson railroaded him after Mass that day in May, with a fantastic story about a prodigal servant son who spirited away an English aristocrat and were in great haste to be married, he had made the usual assumptions. He met them in his office with the usual tired disinterest, tried to smoke out their situation with the usual wait-some-months request. But young lady's face showed no terror and the young man merely shrugged _we'll have a civil one then, _as if he were content to simply make a courtesy offer to the One Holy Church, as if it were _God's_ privilege be part of their union. The Anglican was out of his jurisdiction, but he had a mind to severely reprimand this young Branson for his insolence. Whom did he think he was speaking to?

But the Reverend Sean Fahey's gathering ire was distracted by arm of the chair, where the young lady had laid her hand on top of the man's.

Now, couples in need of quick nuptials _always_ made a show of holding hands- this was an audition, of which they were well aware- but he'd couldn't recall any woman who'd dare do that in front of another male, in front of an authority; it violated some primal order of power. But the young man didn't shrink or yank his hand away- he was completely un-chafed, sure of himself and comfortable under her stewardship.

It was only a hand, only a gesture- but coupled with her clear-eyed calm and his confident directness made him think that, for once, _mutual consent_- a concept so radical in the 13th century when daughters were traded for pigs- might not involve ignoring the duress of circumstances. A statement of consent from the poor, the meek, the disenfranchised faced with only bad options was, many times, as contemptibly false as the "confessions" extracted from Irish prisoners by Dublin Castle.

But the Wise Men in Rome who made canon law on matrimony, emulated in civil law on matrimony, had never been to St. Michael's Dublin, never had to confront the consequence of their policies in the confession box, never had to clear their throats and tell a woman- _it was your choice, you must live your choice, only God can separate you_.

Only God can save you now.

He was still in seminary when a young Mrs. Branson had entered one of those boxes to seek instruction. Her husband had abandoned the family, with four boys still at home, but that was irrelevant she was told; she was still married. _Only God can save you now_. And she was schooled- bluntly- on the truth she knew: if her only trouble was a loveless rest of her life, she was one of the lucky ones.

The Reverend Sean Fahey couldn't remember how he came to learn that information. Perhaps it hadn't even been told to him, perhaps he'd just assumed from the pieces that were public. Lives are stories and stories are predictable; in this job, he'd seen and heard it all.

And yet, every so often, he could still be surprised.

There they were, those curious two- in his pews, in his office, and now on his schedule for four o'clock this afternoon. He had issued to the young woman the usual advice: _pray for the courage to live your choice_. And she had nodded with all the earnestness of a truthseeker- _what would it be like to minister to a well-fed, well-dressed, well-heeled Protestant flock_?- and when she turned her bright, searching eyes to the Holy Family he found himself wondering if Mother Mary had ever showed teeth when she smiled and what had attracted Joseph to her and her to Joseph, poor cuckolded Joseph, whose faith in the virtue of his betrothed would never survive a session at a northside pub.

_Maybe you don't know the story_, called a sing-song voice from his past.

Oh.

He pushed up his spectacles, pinched the bridge of his nose.

So it was going to be one of _those_ days.

* * *

><p>Aileen Branson was awake. She could barely sleep for the excitement and had extricated herself from her mother's embrace and the bed they shared while it was still dark. She sat on the floor and munched on some biscuits behind a tent of auburn straw hair, careful to chew slowly and silently so as to not wake her mam, while she watched the clock.<p>

_Little hand on the seven_- that's when Mam rose for her shift, that's when this wonderful day would start.

_Little hand on the nine_- that's when Uncle Liam would come to take her to Mrs. Branson's to dress. And they would take the tram to what her uncle described as "a fancy British-people hotel" to meet Sybil and her fancy British sisters and they would all ride in a fancy car to the church.

Aileen had envisioned the procession of this day in such clear and exact detail it was as if she'd watched it at the cinema. She could picture her dress with its new blue sash hanging on the back of the door at Mrs. Branson's. She could picture the tram stop at the top of St. Stephen's Green. But after? The film reel cut and the screen went blank. She had no idea what to expect, but she couldn't wait to find out.

As soon as the little hand hit the seven, Aileen was at her mother's side- "Mam! Mam!"- repeating the agreement they'd reached at supper last night.

"Mother of God, Aileen, don't wake the dead!"

"Mam, you promised!"

Moira had. She hated it- Aileen's request and her concession- but there was so much she couldn't do for her daughter, she felt she had to do that which she could. She was the always the person who said no to her- for once, she wanted to be the one who said yes, who was the hero, at least for a spell. "Alright," Moira smiled. "Go get the scissors."

* * *

><p>Tom woke early in what had been Sybil's bed. It still smelled of her and he smiled, turning into it.<p>

On this Most Important Day of his life, Tom put an arm behind his head and reflected. Rain fell rhythmically on the other side of the cracked window; an apt metaphor, as he now opened himself up, let it in and sit awhile with the surety that it would be washed away- really and truly, once and for all- this afternoon.

Loneliness.

His good nature and intrepid spirit had masqued so many of his choices- he left home for a foreign land and rarely wrote, preferred to spend his free time with books and reports of revolutions in far-off places, friendly with everyone but friends with no one, and now he confronted his motives honestly.

He had met Sybil in 1914, had proposed to her two years later. Three years after _that_, they had finally made it to the altar. To outsiders, he had the patience of a saint- or at least a man in love. But the truth was, he evolved too in that time- maybe not as visibly, but just much. It was not just her who had to become the woman who could be his wife; he had to become the man who could be her husband.

Even after he first proposed himself as a husband, his intellect twisted isolation into principle- "_I'm going to be a conscientious objector_"- as his honor converted fear to virtue- "_I'll go, I'll hand in my notice, I won't be here when you get back_"- and thus, as deftly as paper folded into an origami crane, Tom Branson continued to flirt with solitary fates.

Perhaps that's where he was most comfortable. Why had he chosen to propose to his employer's naive, sheltered nineteen-year-old daughter in her first minutes away from home? He had to have known she wouldn't- _couldn't-_ say yes to him then. Perhaps he had courted the rejection. He didn't handle rejection so well. No wonder she was so knocked back by his intention- nay, _enthusiasm- _to spend the rest of his life in prison. The lust for self-immolation- Ireland's _blood sacrifice_- coursed in his veins too. She had looked so stunned and hurt by the motor that day- more than he'd ever affected her. _Well, the British are winners_, he told himself sourly, _so she wouldn't understand_.

But he wasn't so self-reliant as he'd come to think.

For he was compelled to write a letter, his testament, and slip it into her bedroom. She, who came to visit (mostly uninvited) and asked after him, who listened to his stories, his opinions, his point of view. She who clutched the blanket to her heart when he basically said _to hell with you_.

When he looked back at her, in borrowed livery, hope defeated experience. That internal war must have lasted more than a mere second, but that encapsulated the choice, decided on her profile. (She would later say yes to him in that same dress, he smiled to himself. _If only I'd been able to foresee its future then_!)

And now, here they were and _the better for it_, he mused._  
><em>

He could never express what it meant to have her on the other side of the door. Someone who cared for him, about him. Someone to whom he was not a burden, not a servant, not a cog in the big, grand scheme nor a remainder from a life that wasn't.

It was well-chewed wisdom that all men yearn to make a family and a home of their own someday. _You'll see,_ Frank had said a thousand years back. But he had. He did. God knows how he'd contain his emotion at the church today. But he would- he _would. _An easy and happy ceremony, despite Lord Grantham's intentions. Sybil could dam up her emotions better than anyone he had ever met- a skill she'd no doubt employ today. He'd not the be one to loose her hold on herself, not when she'd been left to walk alone.

There was a knock and his mother poked her head in. "Ah, you're up!"

"I am," he confirmed from his reclined position.

"Your breakfast is hot downstairs."

"Thanks, Mam. I'll be there in a minute." His mother shut the door and Tom sat up, put his feet on the floor. _My wedding day_. He shook off his ruminations with a grin. _Let's get to it. _

* * *

><p>The walk from Moira's to the Branson home took them past Mountjoy Prison, where the rain had not kept away the congregation of female protestors holding vigil. Older women, all in black, knelt in a line and said rosaries while under a plywood shelter on the sidewalk, a younger woman with a halo of sunset-red hair peddled shamrock boutineers for a tuppence.<p>

"All proceeds to the prisoners' families!" the peddlar called out. "Help support the wives and children of our freedom fighters!"

They passed "The Joy" (never say the Irish don't have a sense of humor) and its spectacle often; Liam had explained to Aileen that the demonstrators were upset about the treatment of political prisoners, most of whom had committed no crime but free speech, who were often never brought to trial, but were detained indefinitely with murderers and other threats to society by the British authorities. When they walked by, Aileen saluted the shamrock-seller with a cheerful, "Up the rebels!"

The redhead broke into a grin. "That's a girl! Here." She offered Aileen a bunch. "No cost. It's an investment, for a future Cumann na mBan."

"We'll pay," Liam said quickly as he produced two pennies. "I won't be taking food from any babies."

The redhead's object of attention shifted instantly, the tenor of his remark having convinced her he was not the little girl's father. Aileen rolled her eyes. She knew _that _look, every time _they_ (waitresses, shop clerks, the posh lady with the poodle in the park, now the shamrock-seller...) found out he was her uncle, they smiled and tossed their hair and behaved ridiculously; she would never act so silly around a man when _she_ was older! The redhead stepped out from the shelter, into the pouring rain, to pin it to Aileen's dress. Liam told her it wasn't necessary, but she persisted- camping herself next to him, under his umbrella.

"We wear the shamrock," she told Aileen, as she fastened the cluster below her collar, "because it used to be a crime to wear a shamrock. In the time of Victoria, a soldier who pinned a shamrock to his uniform could be put to death for treason." Aileen looked to Liam, who confirmed it with a nod. "So now we wear it to remind us of how much the British hate and fear Irish solidarity."

"Sticking together," Liam translated.

"Aye. They are not us and we are not them," the redhead went on. "If you ever think to trust a word they say, remember how little they'd shoot you over."

Liam's brow drew up in surprise. "Uh, thank you," he ended the encounter curtly. He wanted the Irish to radicalize and mobilize, but _Jesus_. Aileen was a seven-year-old child and her father had been killed; he doubted this woman, who preached almost rapturously about a Manichean Ireland, had suffered so much. "We have an appointment." _For my brother's wedding to a British aristocrat, _he finished pointedly in his head.

He waited until they were a block away before he spoke up. "You know, I don't agree with all that woman said." Aileen had been skipping ahead two steps; Liam stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Listen now, this is important." Aileen did- she always tried to concentrate hard when Uncle Liam tried to teach her about serious subjects. "I don't want you thinking the shamrock's a symbol of bloodshed- it's not. More than a thousand years ago, St. Patrick was using it to teach the Trinity to the Irish. And your great-great-great-great-grandda was throwing the clover over his shoulder long before Victoria's reign. The shamrock's a symbol of pride, not oppression. Do you understand me?"

Aileen drew her lower lip between her teeth. _No surprise, _he thought, _that __a seven-year-old doesn't grasp the concept of cultural reappropriation. _"Alright, how about this? What day do we wear the shamrock?"

"St. Patrick's, of course. Everyone knows that."

"Correct! Now, I want you to look at it and think of St. Patrick's Day, with parades and no school, and think, 'Gosh, I'm so happy to be Irish!' and not 'Oh, I hate those British.'"

"I am happy to be Irish," Aileen affirmed.

"Good-"

"But I hate the British too."

Liam put his hand on Aileen's head. "Come now. Even Sybil?"

"Not _Sybil_."

"She _is_ British."

"No she's not," the child argued. "Not anymore. She lives here with us now."

"I'm sure she wouldn't like it if you said that. She does live in Dublin now, but she still thinks fondly of her home. And that's alright," he prompted, "because we don't hate British people, we hate British rule of Ireland. If every British person was like Sybil and supported independence for Ireland, Ireland would be free."

Aileen was a clever child and her brow furrowed as she considered that statement and its corollary. "But Ireland's _not_ free." So...

"Not _yet_," Liam said. "But let's be hopeful." He had another trivia question. "Can you name the county was St. Patrick from?" Aileen could not. "Ah, because it's a trick." He revealed the answer as his niece's mouth dropped nearly to the ground. "Tis true, _a stor_," he said, "the patron saint of Ireland was British, born and raised."

* * *

><p>Mrs. Branson pushed another sizzling ham slice from the skillet to the plate over her son's protestations. "Mam, please!" Tom held up his hands. "You'll have to roll me to the church!"<p>

"Hush and eat," she clucked. "What do you expect of me? It's your last day at home and this'll be the last decently cooked meal of _your_ life," but she smiled as she said it. She would miss these private mornings with Tom. Not that she had a chance on weekend-days (_like Siamese twins joined at the arse, those two_), but on weekdays she'd find him humming barefoot in front of the stove as he heated the wash-water for his _lady- _"It's no trouble Mam, I already have the water on for tea," he'd say amiably- while she slept.

"Not true, Ma," Tom replied with a grin. "_I'm _decent in a kitchen."

"You better _not_!" His mother whipped around, spatula pointed. "Making breakfast for her, while she sleeps til noon!" Tom shook his head- his mother rounded up every hour after 5am to _until noon. _"Don't make me have a heart failure!" His mam issued a beleaguered Irish mother sigh. "You can't spoil her. This is what she wanted- let her have it. She wants to be a Branson, she can't be a layabout."

"Oh, please- as if Liam ever lifted a finger when he was student." _Or now._

"That was different," his mother said, throwing _another_ slice into the griddle. "He had to study and read." Tom could not help point out that he also read a lot of books- _after_ work. "All this talk about Liam, maybe you should've married him!"

"He's not my sort."

"Dark hair, blue eyes, useless around the house- I'd say he's _exactly_ your sort," his mother quipped.

"Nah. Too fickle for me." Tom rose to clear his plate, dropping a kiss on her head as he'd done that first day back. "It's been nice to be home, Mam."

Mrs. Branson swallowed the lump in her throat _plenty of time for sentiment today, too soon to start now. "_Get yourself dressed," she told Tom. Frank was on his way over.

"For what?"

To take him out for coffee, she answered in her no-nonsense tone. "And perhaps a little chat- advice, like."

_Oh_ _Jesus Christ_. "I don't need him to do that. I don't _want _him to do that." But she was adamant that he should have a man around today. "Ma, I _am_ a man," he reminded her, exasperated. "And Frank's not that much older and we're not that close." _An lecture on life with awkward marital anecdotes about him and Maeve- no thank you_. Besides, he informed his mother, he had _things _to do.

"What _things_?" she demanded.

"Get ready. Pack up the rest of my clothes." _And do the laundry_ he mumbled.

His hope that his mother would miss the last bit went unrealized. "Oh no, you will not!" _Ma..._ he implored silently. "As if I'd be surprised by anything, least of all the state of your bedsheets!" she tittered "Get yourself upstairs and dressed."

"You can't tell Sybil. I promised."

"It'll be our secret." She patted his back. "Did you really think I'd let you do laundry on your wedding day? My son scrubbing sheets _on his wedding day _in the courtyard for all the world to see?" She shook her head. "The two of you- a pair of fools!"

* * *

><p>The rain came down and the air came in, clean and cool off St. Stephen's Green, swept over her face so softly and sweetly that for one half-asleep moment she was sure it was Tom's hand. In the next, consciousness came and Sybil blinked awake, her eyes adjusting to the stark whiteness of the room and the day.<p>

_My wedding day_.

She saw Mary in front of the open French doors, arms crossed at the dense, chalky sky as if to say to God, _this is very shoddy presentation for my sister's wedding, take it back and replace it swiftly before I report you to Carson_. She cast a look of sympathy at Sybil. "I'm sorry about the weather, darling."

"Oh, don't be," Sybil dismissed, sitting up. "It rains every day here. Yesterday was an exception." She yawned and stretched her arms. She felt good- no headache, a little parched, but that was easily remedied. _Not bad for a late night out. _"What time is it?"

"Just after ten."

"_Ten_?"

Sybil threw off the covers as Mary tsked her - _calm down, there's plenty of time, if there were ever a day for beauty sleep. _ "You can be such a bear when roused," Mary said as Sybil came up beside her to view the weather for herself. "Does your fiance know you snore?"

_Tom's never said_.She wrinkled her nose. "Do I?"

"Well, _I _didn't open the shutters."

Mary's deadpan was betrayed by the twinkle in her eyes; Sybil swatted her arm like the pesky little sister she used to be. "You're awful to tease me today of all days, when I'm a bundle of nerves!" she huffed, turning her attention back outside.

Mary observed her for an extended moment then noted, "You're not nervous."

"No, not really," Sybil conceded. "There's not much to worry about." She looked down briefly, a diffident shoulder lifting. "The benefit of a small affair, I suppose."

"The benefit of a considered choice." Carefully stated but sincere, and the closest Mary Crawley would ever come to a concession that her sister _should _marry the chauffeur. Sybil wasn't prepared to thank her for it, but she inclined her head at the effort.

It was a start.

"There's a bath already drawn for you," Mary told her. "Order whatever you like for breakfast and Edith and I will have it sent up for when you come out."


	84. Chapter 84: The Wedding Part II

_RL delay- thanks for your patience as always!  
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* * *

><p>The bell boy for the Royal Hibernian Hotel was an eager lad of sixteen and the brass buttons on his immaculate uniform were exceptionally shiny. All three sisters noticed it, but only one was spurred to ask <em>do you study<em> and _what subjects_ and _what do you hope to do_? The boy, flushing deeply at her attention, stammered out, "Just my job well, madam."

"I'm not a madam quite yet," Sybil quipped, which sent him from red to purple at his _faux pas_. "But I will be! In just a few hours in fact," she quickly assured him. "I'd say you're ahead of the curve." He nodded deferentially and set up their breakfast spread- _careful and conscientious_ he was in his work, very determined _like someone else, _she smiled- waffles with berries and cream, tea, and an enormous vase of five dozen white roses, fully in bloom. "Goodness!"

_Sybil has an admirer_ Edith teased and Mary read the attached card: "_B__est wishes for a beloved bride"- _but no signature. "I'm to tell you the sender wished to remain anonymous," the bell boy relayed before he excused himself. "My ladies."

That honorific off a Dublin-Irish tongue brought back memories _did he really used to call me that always,_ it seemed so unbelievable now that there was ever a time_ before he was Tom and I was just Sybil.. _As she had back then, Sybil followed the speaker, offering tutelary confidence out of her sisters' earshot. "Whatever your ambitions, keep at them," she urged. "You never know what's possible."

Her open smile, and the unapproachable other two preoccupied with the vase, convinced the bell boy he could respond in kind- even with a bit of cheek. "Much thanks, Miss. And if I may- he sure is a lucky fellow!" which made Sybil laugh_. __He was you._

"Your fiance?" Mary speculated after he'd left. "White roses for the bride?"

_Twenty pounds' worth of flowers? That's more than we spent on the wedding. _"I think he'd rather have sent a poem," Sybil parried diplomatically.

"It's Yorkshire," Edith said, admiring them. "White roses for Yorkshire."

The three of them traded looks. No one said it, but they all knew it was not their father and _Mama would have made herself known_. That left only one candidate. "_Granny_."

* * *

><p>At the Branson home, the matriarch had questions. For her son- but first, for the grinning girl in the doorway. "And who are <em>you<em>?"

_A mysterious ___mademoiselle___ who followed me home_, Liam joked, shaking out his umbrella as Aileen shook her newly-bobbed hair around her face and beamed, "Don't I look like Sybil?"

That she did, Mrs. Branson affirmed with a smile, as she inspected the trim. "Your mother did good work."

Liam caught his mother's side-eye and her inference- Moira was no fan of Sybil's- as his hands came to rest on Aileen's shoulders. "I was as surprised as you."

"Aye, well, you're in for another," his mother warned, as she indicated the coat hook behind him and a familiar, drenched mack which made her boy audibly suck in his breath.

_Clare_.

"She came?" he asked dumbly, staring at the proof that she obviously had. He had not expected her to after-

"She's upstairs, looking for thread." _Or so she said. _It was quite clear Clare meant to avoid any conversation with Mrs. Branson; her whole demeanor had changed from her usual ebullient self to_ a child who's touched a hot stove._ Wary. _Burned_. She could guess why. "Oh Liam," his mother sighed in disappointment, "what did you do?"

But before he could answer, Clare appeared on the stairs, in a black dress with a Mandarin collar, blonde hair pulled back in a barrette. He had never seen her without makeup, not even when they fell asleep in her bed. She froze for a split-second when their eyes met, then coolly descended. It didn't matter. A second was all it took.

Mrs. Branson saw it too- Clare's broken-hearted bearing so bitterly familiar that her own jaw started to clench. _ Liam my boy, I will beat you myself._

Aileen, ignorant to the romantic tension, bounded over, keen to get the stylish older girl's opinion on her haircut. Liam kept his distance, his mother's stare screwing into his profile. "Mam," he started with minor irritation, "you must have something to do. _Upstairs_." To his surprise, his mother complied (and shockingly without comment), which left Clare on the sofa and him boxed out by the arm, Aileen between them. Clare was anxious to get on with her purpose and get out before she got entangled in one of Liam's longing looks_. _"I didn't think you'd come," he ventured.

"It's not Aileen's fault, what's happened between us," Clare replied curtly. She brought out a bag and hurried Aileen along. "Come on. Let's see how it fits."

Clare had also once been a poor little girl, the last in a line of seven, in hand-me-down dresses and worn-out shoes, and she had foreseen from the start that Aileen could not walk into a fine hotel in a re-purposed Communion dress for _those people _to gawk at. Clare had a happy childhood but, like all poor children, humiliation was a constant presence in it. She'd re-purposed_ that_ though- into work ethic, drive, a wardrobe that would never compel her to lower her head. _Nor would Aileen, not today,_ Clare smiled as she unfolded the cobalt blue dress cape and draped it around Aileen's shoulders. "Very nice."

"It's grand!" Aileen exclaimed, but she was confused. "But who's it for?" This child, like Liam and Clare before her, had little expectation of presents- not at Christmas or her birthday and certainly not on any old Saturday.

"It's for you," Liam told her. "Clare made it, as a surprise." He smoothed its folds, perfected the black tie at her collar. When he started university, he'd been "adopted" by the mother of a wealthy friend who saw that he was _outfitted for success; _to see Aileen similarly shepherded by Clare, with her own hands, on her own time, and at her own expense, moved him immensely. "What do you say?"

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"There's some stockings and shoes as well." Liam recognized the box from a posh children's store. "They were on sale," Clare said when he asked. They weren't, but they were_ likely the first new clothes she's had in her life_. "Sybil wanted to buy them, but you-know-who thew a fit. She won't say a word to me though." Clare kept her gaze on Aileen as she spoke. "I'm unmarried and work, just as her. I can spend my money how I like."

Aileen seized her hand- "Can you spin me?"- to see if the cape would spin too. After a moment's hesitation, Clare stood and did a short samba sequence, spinning out a delighted Aileen, whose cape did indeed open like a parachute as did her new hair. Liam watched them and only then did he remember Pico the Spaniard, that she'd gone dancing with him, realize she might have done more with him, and that he didn't care. They could start anew and put their old habits behind them.

Clare fell back on the sofa and smiled then, but not for him- at Aileen on the floor, in a sea of white tissue paper, buckling her new shoes.

In his life, Liam Branson never found it difficult to talk to girls. Until now. She wouldn't even meet his eye. "Clare..." Liam had never said it to anyone, never wanted to say it to anyone, never even lied about it to anyone and now, it spilled out, the only true response to her face on the stairs. "I love you, you know." For such a significant sentiment, it was easily spoken and so he said it again. "I love you."

She finally, _finally _looked at him, but she did not smile. Her eyes dropped to his knee, which had started involuntarily to bounce, before she said, her words and tone moderated for Aileen, "Take your niece out and show her off. And tell your mother I'm sorry I couldn't wait to say goodbye."

* * *

><p>It wasn't even noon, but the pub was Frank's idea. "Why don't we duck in here?" he proposed, sensing Tom's mortification at the prospect of a walk with no subterfuge. The rain was still steady- heavier, in fact- and the sky had darkened from white to charcoal, with diminished hope that it would clear.<p>

The pub was half full: graveyard workers just off their shifts, day laborers who hadn't been hired today. Frank ordered tea and appeared perfectly a comfortable. Tom decided on a pint and, disquieted by the silence, a jejune opener. "I'm sorry you had leave Maeve and the kids." It was no bother, Frank said, his in-laws were minding them. "Still..."

"Tom-" Frank's large, empathetic hand fell on his shoulder- "it's alright."

Tom bristled reflexively at the insinuation that he was over-thinking and overly worried- he'd done the thinking and the worrying his whole life, there having been no one to do it for him, _isn't that why we're here_? And he didn't much care for the patronizing gesture, until it occurred to him that it was probably natural for Frank,_ he probably does it all the time for his own sons_.

How many children did he and Maeve have? He could never remember. _Sybil would know_- and she'd only met them that once for dinner. _ It must be strange to _be_ a father, _Tom thought. But then, Frank had one for most of his life. He was about to be a husband, but it wasn't strange; while it was odd- unreal- to think _today, just a few hours from now _would end in her arms, in their bed, rolling around in all those nice linens she paid too much for, he did feel mostly himself.

The publican delivered their order- "There, thanks very much," Frank Branson did not frequent pubs and when he did, he did not run tabs- and settled back with the newspaper, which Tom had to keep from reading. He didn't want to be rude to Frank. As a man, a citizen, a relation with whom Tom made occasional cordial conversation with, Frank was stand-up. As a stand_-in_ for... well, that elicited more complicated emotions that Tom had no desire to examine- today or ever, really.

Frank sipped his tea and Tom found himself wondering, as he often had, if Frank had an internal life. Maybe he was just a simpler sort of person. _Or maybe he just never needed to acquire on_e.

He had a vague recollection of Frank's wedding. At fourteen, he'd just made the cut of adults; Liam had been left at home. He remembered Maeve's asthmatic blubbing and the tight line of his mother's mouth during the vows; Maeve's Da putting his arm around Frank and toasting his_ new son_. He remembered being wholly unimpressed with the whole affair and that his cousin had improved things considerably by slipping him a bottle.

He did not remember that he'd sought out the drink or the combustible anger it doused. Nor did he remember the lie he told while chatting up a pretty niece of Maeve's, that Frank was only his half-brother (he might as well have been). He remembered her, as well as the discovery that she was the object of affection of a lad he played football with _and _that he had (quite nobly, in his fourteen-year-old mind) backed off from her flirtations. He tried now, but he couldn't remember the niece's name to ask after her. Frank was still sipping his tea. _W__hy tarry, _he decided. _This talk won't start itself. _"So who took you out? Before your wedding?"

"Oh- Maeve's father." _Of course. _"It was mostly financials," Frank recalled. "Gave me a list of vendors he believed were crooked- _they'll say a shilling and charge a guinea..._" He wagged his finger as his father-in-law had done, as if this experience of gently comedic father-in-law encounters was shared.

Tom thought of the baker who had done Sybil over with the delivery cost on the cake. "That was nice of him." He took a drink, tried to swallow his retort; non-participation was the best way to make this quick and painless. But as usual, he couldn't hold back. "Sybil's father gave me some advice," leaving unsaid _after he failed to buy me off_. "He told me if I mistreated her, he'd have me torn to pieces by dogs."

"Huh." Frank's brows crossed then relaxed. "Well, when you're a father, you'll say the same to some poor lad." No, he wouldn't. "Yes, you will. Because no father believes there's a man in the world who will care for his little girl so much as him."

Tom's mouth tightened. "Funny, I don't think he much cares about her at all."

"Doesn't care?" How Frank could sound incredulous about _that.._.

"No, I don't think he cares if she's well-treated," Tom repeated. "She could be in a ditch for all he knows, for all he's _cared _to find out." _Not a word since she'd arrived in Ireland, other than a communique from his lawyer_. He'd stopped short of disowning her, but that was to save face and perpetuate the Crawleys' inane, fabricated back-story. "He doesn't care if the shop-owner cheats her. Did he offer her one word of advice about how to get by in the world?"

_Ah. _Frank sat back, chastened. _S__o that's what this is about._ _  
><em>

"Our marriage is an insult to him," Tom continued, "that what he cares about. He said it to make a show of his authority and put me in my place- and Sybil in hers. As if she'd ever wait on him to swoop in and save her!"

Frank turned his cup on its saucer- what to say and how to say it to his righteous, stubborn little brother _who's not as old or experienced as he thinks_? "I know you're not interested in advice from me," he started gravely, "but people have their reasons for why they do what they do and they aren't ever as bad as we'd like them to be."

_Jesus. _Two decades ago, Da had left and not once- _not once_- had his older brother attempted to broach it with him. _It has to come up sometime_, Tom supposed, _but if we're going there, it's going to be outright_. "Are you talking about Sybil's father- or someone else?"

Frank did not dodge. "Anyone," he replied. "Sybil's father or your own, Sybil herself-"

Tom cut him off, "_D__on't_. No one, with the exception of our mother, has given me so much. And no one, our mother included, has sacrificed more on my behalf," he informed his brother. "Sybil is... beyond reproach."

Righteous, stubborn _and unmarried._ "But you will reproach her," Frank insisted with certitude that defied his mild manner, _when she doesn't do what you want and when she doesn't want you to do what you want. "_It would be a great mistake to think you won't."

"Well I won't." What the hell did Frank know about him and Sybil or Sybil herself. _Or me for that matter_.

Frank sighed. _You'll see, You'll see. And then you'll understand _how it's possible to love and let down and to let down and love. "He sent me a card," he disclosed. "One line- 'With congratulations on your marriage,' it said and he signed it, _Your father, Michael Branson_._"_

Tom snapped up. "He's alive?" The two words winded him like a sucker punch.

"He was in 1905." Frank regarded his brother, unspooling. _Poor Tom, _never able to hide what he was feeling- or thinking. "Shannon postmark. No return address, no word since."

Tom had no idea how to process this information. He presumed his father, sickened by drink, had done as animals do and wandered into the woods to die. _To spare the pack. _That's what Tom had told himself. _1905_- six years later, when he was fourteen and Liam nine_. _No concern for them, not even curious what baby Liam grew to look like. Not a care in the world, but card-shopping in Shannon_._ _And not one feckin' ounce of shame_. "I'll keep an eye out for the post," he said, sarcastic and cold. And then, not either: "Did you know he planned to leave?"

"You think he planned it?" A wiser response than Tom expected. "No, he didn't," Frank answered. "Mam came round- I had a room near that civil service school, you remember?" _I__n Dublin. A mile away. _Yes, he remembered. "He hadn't been home in a few days and she asked if I'd seen him, but I hadn't."

There was more Tom wanted to ask- _where were_ you_?- _but not today. _Not today- not ever actually. _He had a family now, his wife, and a future to focus on. _And that's that. _He called out to the publican. "What's news?"

The publican held up the paper: a photo of Secretary of State for Air Winston Churchill handing a check to Alcock and Brown. "They split the prize money- five-thousand divided between them and five-thousand to the workers who built the plane. Good men," he nodded his approval.

_Ten thousand pounds_. The price of an unprecedented feat- for Alcock, Brown, and Sybil Crawley. _Some money, but not much_. "What'd he say?" Tom asked about Churchill.

"Talked up Brown's American parentage. The 'special, historic bond' between the Americans and the British."

"It looked pretty special at Bunker Hill," Tom retorted. "And in 1812."

The publican's face cracked. "Something to look forward to with independence, eh? Being 'special' to the Brits." They shared an acrid chuckle, which confounded Frank because _he thinks Sybil is one of them. Because he doesn't know her, or us, or_ _that she's half-American besides._

The publican offered to buy him a pint for his _mots justes _about America's triumphs over the Empire, but Tom refused. "Can't- I have an important date," he said with a grin as he rose off the stool, "with a lady whose good side I am wont to stay on."

Outside, Tom offered Frank the cursory _thanks_ _for taking the time _which hit him oddly, but all he asked was if Tom had followed Alcock and Brown for the _Daily_. "No, just for my own interest," which appeared to impress his brother. Tom shrugged. "I'm interested in lots of things."

Frank put a hand on him again- not patronizing, almost like an old man who needed to steady himself. "I think it would be a great mistake to assume he wasn't interested, or that he didn't care." He patted his shoulder, said he'd see him at the church. He was halfway down the block before Tom realized his oldest brother had not meant their father.

* * *

><p>Sybil relaxed back in the hotel bathtub, which could easily fit a second person with room to spare, but which at present was only her, a blanket of bubbles, and a heaping bag of eucalyptus and mint. Mary and Edith insisted she do absolutely nothing before the ceremony but be pampered- <em>Mama's wisdom surely<em>, but since she'd crossed off every item in her checklist, she assented.

_There is still Mama's letter _but she wanted to save that for the bride's room, to share those final moments of reflection with her mother, at least in spirit. Sybil knew Mama would mark four o'clock somehow and it heartened her that they would be thinking of each other as she crossed the proverbial threshold from her parents' home to her own.

No, she was not nervous.

She'd been there before, on that long walk to the garage, en route to Scotland, up the stairs in Liverpool, the altitude sickness of new heights, of moving forward, the march of time, the fear and exhilaration standing before trembling future.

Today, her mind was on the bath.

As she had prophesied to Tom, _I'll say it and I'll mean it_ but she had already_ done_ it.

She stretched out, arms reddened by the fragrant, almost-too-hot water. She could appreciate a decent bath now- at Mrs. Branson's, it was a metal bucket (_called a tub, but that was a lie_) in a closet off the kitchen; one stood or crouched in it and washed by hand, bumping into the walls, boiled cabbage and chatter permeating the folding door. Her first week, she had bathed with her then-enemy Liam Branson recapping his day on the other side, fully aware that if she lost her footing, she'd come crashing out stark naked. _Nevermind Mrs. Branson's face_ when she'd remarked on the acrobatics required to pumice (though she'd seen Clare in a sleeveless dress, so perhaps it was generational).

_God_ those early days! She hoped she hadn't ranted too much to Tom, who was so mortified about the straits of the house that he'd lugged the wash-bucket up to her room every day, despite her (ambivalent) instruction that he need not.

_What he came from... what he's ascended to. _ It was remarkable to her. _Everything__ he has, he's earned- _ through his own hustle, his own effort. She had made the most of her opportunities, but she was under no delusion that any of them had been offered to her on merit. _We are so much alike that way,_ she thought- she was also driven by an almost-desperate desire to prove herself, to exceed others' low expectations, low estimation. _So alike-_ but had she always been so? Perhaps he had taken hold much earlier than she realized, in her impressionable late youth, when she was searching garden parties for adults to admire and emulate and her subconscious had settled on him.

_Whatever your ambitions, keep at them. You never know what's possible_.

"Oh my..." she murmured, amplified by the acoustics of the bath. The eager adolescent at the door in need of encouragement _was_ _me_.

* * *

><p>"Telephone call for you."<p>

Sybil's heart skipped- Mary looked irked, which meant it must be Tom. She sat up and reached for her robe before she remembered this was a very nice hotel with extensions and she _was_ the bride. "Can I take it in here?"

A back-and-forth ensued, as Tom waited at the telephone in the tobacconist's shop around the corner from the pub- a _coupe de foudre_ after Frank's revelation, a chance to talk to Sybil. Mary had picked up- he'd hoped for Edith, but no such luck- and left him with an impersonal, _o__ne moment_. He was about to redial when the line crackled with life and far-off, pitched women's voices- "_P__ull _it, Mary!"- "Would you like me to pull out the wall, _Sybil?_"- and then, ever so sweetly, the voice that could ease any and all of his troubles. "Hello?"

"Sybil?" She sounded like she was on another continent. "Love, what happened to the connection?"

"The telephone doesn't quite reach in here."

"In_ where_- the trenches?"

"The bath."

"The bath?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Huh." Tom propped an elbow on the phone. "Tell me more." The tobacconist shot him a look.

She had swum (sort of) to end of the tub nearest the door, chin on the porcelain, receiver in hand. The handset was on the floor and she had to speak loud and clear to be heard; it did compromise the intimacy she'd tried to create. "How are you?"

"To be honest love, I'm not-" He stopped. Did he want to burden her with his family skeletons, even the undead ones?

His pause was all it took for every jitter she did not think she had to rise up. "You're not- what?"

"I'm ready to be married, love," he told her. "This day is taking feckin' forever!"

Tom didn't see her eyes close and her hand come to her heart in relief. "That's awful language to use with your almost-wife," she chided with a laugh, sensing that he needed her lightness now for whatever he did not say. _He needs me. _ "Hold on..." She slipped out- Tom heard the water slosh and splash to the tile- and lifted the handset; she sounded so much closer now. They talked for a few more minutes- about breakfast, about nothing- until the tobacconist tapped Tom on the shoulder, with a thumb at the queue behind him and a receipt. "I do like your voice over the telephone. You should call me more often."

"We have telephones at the office," Tom mulled. "No one would notice a local call." _Lord knows the newsmen don't call home_ with the way they wisecracked about their wives.

"Mama wants us to have one installed at the flat." She quickly added that it would be paid for, of course. _Of course. _Tom rolled his eyes- _just what we need, _even if it were possible,_ constant interference from the Crawleys; _also, woe to the flat that had the only telephone in the place, _w__e'd be the new GPO. _"We'll talk about it."

Sybil pulled a silk wrap of Mary's over her still-damp self. "Personally, I think the one at the stationer's will do. They're open until nine- we probably don't need to be bothered after that."

"Oh no?" Ha! _She hates the idea more than I do. _ _"_Why's that? You have plans for the evenings?"

She smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"I would, actually." The talk of Crawleys and telephones made him flash back to Mr. Carson's office- _Well, isn't someone going to answer it_? "You know, we owe our relationship to this little invention."

"Don't be dramatic, we do not," she countered. "We owe our relationship your wildly inappropriate declaration of love and your absolutely stubborn belief that love would conquer all."

"Ah, but for that afternoon, I wouldn't have never known you loved me too." _And who knows what would have happened_. "I'll let you get ready. I just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you terribly when you're not around. I've become used to you, I think."

"That's an auspicious start for us." _Us. _It still made him smile. "Tom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"If you telephoned me, I would tell you that I think you're wonderful and I love you very, very much."

She knew it hadn't been downtime, but the discomfit of who he used to be but was not anymore (they loved them but their families by definition could not understand this), but he hadn't needed to tell her about the pained conversation with Frank, she _knew_. "You're better with words than you think, Miss Crawley." _Say it now,_ she said, before it's rendered obsolete. "I'll see you soon."

"I can't wait."


	85. Chapter 85: The Wedding Part III

_thank you so much as always!_

* * *

><p>Aileen Branson's mouth fell open as her head tilted back, her ascent up the white marble staircase slowed by awe. Golden doors flanked by torches, already lit on this dark, stormy afternoon, lay at the end like Heaven's Gates, forbidden but to the chosen few- the Important Men of the Empire, their wealth-soaked wives and immaculate children, a calvary of porters, chauffeurs, and staff in tow.<p>

A sandy-haired brother and sister, with matching raincoats and stuck-up noses, sneered at Aileen as they waited for their motorcar. Aileen did a quick account- _bathed, hair washed, clothes clean- _she had committed no bodily offense; perhaps her freckles exposed her_. _ These children had none, nor did Sybil. _Maybe only Irish are marked with spots, so the English can tell us apart_. She would ask Uncle Tom about it later. Uncle Liam had been moody since they left Ma Branson's and besides, she was not sure he was terribly wise about British ways. As her uncle pulled her inside, Aileen stuck out her tongue at the brats.

Liam stuck out in his plain, commoner suit, which Aileen assumed made him stride fast through the lobby toward the elevator and the man at the Royal Hibernian Hotel desk do a double-take and nearly topple a palm tree (Aileen had never seen one, but the placard read "DATE PALM, PALESTINE") to block their entrance. "Excuse me, where do you think _you _are-"

"My niece is here at the invitation of Lady Sybil Crawley," Liam defended tersely. "You call up to the room and ask her, or Lady Edith."

"That is not necessary," the hotelier sniffed. "If Miss has an invitation, then _I_ shall escort Miss to the Earl of Grantham's suite." He seized Aileen's hand the way an owner would a leash.

Aileen looked to her uncle- she could tell he was furious at this treatment, but decided not to make a scene. "Will you be fine?" Liam asked in a weary voice and she lied yes because she wanted him to think her brave. "Good, I'll see you at the church then," and with a pat of her head, he was away. She watched as his outline diminished and disappeared, leaving her like a buoy in a hostile sea.

The hotelier yanked her toward the elevator- "This way"- and Aileen heard a hint of northern accent peek out from his stateless, snobby hotelier-voice. "Are you from the North?" she asked. "Derry, perhaps?"

He started, which was noticed by the elevator operator. He waited until they were in transit, alone, before answered, "Donegal. I'm from Donegal."

"_Donegal?_" Aileen echoed, aghast. Donegal was Sinn Fein territory, she had seen so on the electoral map proudly displayed at the Harcourt offices, she nearly had it memorized. _Green as Erin_ it was, like all the counties that had stood united for Ireland in 1918- all except the traitorous orange north, surely the origin of _this_ trained monkey. _Donegal_! The Unionists hadn't even run a candidate there! "Donegal voted Sinn Fein," she informed him with judgment. "By _a lot._"

The elevator had reached the top floor; in her indignation, she'd missed the excitement of her first ride which did not improve her opinion of this man. He dipped his head at a dandy waiting on the landing. "Good day, sir," he greeted, northern traces erased again. _Ugh. Coward._

There was no one else in the hall; as they approached the Crawleys' door, the hotelier cleared his throat and said, "Not Donegal-East. Donegal-East went for Labour." His mouth curled as he hinted, "_Blue_."

Aileen's eyes narrowed, then widened- _he's right_ the east constituency was blue which meant..._ h__e's seen the map... h__e's been to Harcourt... h__e's one of - _Her eyes flew to his face; his amused expression confirmed it. "Are you a- ?"

He put a finger to his lips and dropped to one knee, as if to buckle her shoe. "Do you know what a spy's best weapon is?" he whispered.

"His gun?" Aileen whispered back.

"_Silence_. A spy's best weapon is silence." Aileen gave a firm nod to show she understood and she could be trusted. "Your uncle says you're clever," he smiled and Aileen was perplexed again. Did her uncle know _him_? But in the lobby... _it was all pretend! _she realized. _Is _Liam_ a- _? "You won't let him know we're acquainted?"

_You can't ask_, he meant. Aileen shook her head. _Silence._ The code of spies. She had a secret too. He started to stand, but she stopped him, small hands braced on his shoulders. "They shot my father, the British did," she spoke to his cheek. "Not all of them," she clarified. _Not St. Patrick. Not Sybil_. "They shouldn't be allowed to shoot at us."

The spy knew about her father, but it had new potency now: it would be his fate if he were discovered. He looked her directly in the eye. "We're going to make that right," he swore and, emotion rising like Easter, kissed her cheek as if it could balm his poor, battered country itself. He stood up and resumed his character.

When they reached the suite door, they were strangers again.

* * *

><p>The door clattered and shook the house- <em>Liam's back<em>- and Mrs. Branson finished laying out Tom's wedding suit to the sound of the boys' banter. _Strange now_ without the euphonious female accompaniment, but Sybil was gone now, along with all her things. _And Tom in a few short hours. _For a brief spell, the Branson house been full and lively again; tomorrow, it would be just her and Liam, _whenever he ambles home_.

Liam sent her eyes heavenward- if _only_ she could get him married. Clare could be the one, but Mrs. Branson wouldn't blame her if she didn't want to waste her considerable fortitude on a flawed man. _There's youth and there's demons_. Tom's behavior- even his unkind break with Kathleen, on the eve of leaving for England- had all been the former. Liam, she feared, was _too much his father._

Downstairs, the banter was on, but Tom could tell Liam's heart wasn't wholly in it. Tom observed his little brother, at the table with odiferous fish and chips- heavy and sodden he was, as if the rainclouds had followed him in. "Ma said Clare was here."

"Yep."

"So, how was that?" Liam lifted a shoulder as he swallowed a sizeable chunk of cod. He wanted to eat lunch, not talk about Clare. He did not want to _think_ about Clare- why would he? But Tom kept on. "Did you talk to her?"

"Yeah." More reticent, non-responses and then Liam dropped _I told her I loved her_.

Tom was admittedly stunned; his little brother always tacked away from seriousness with women. In fact, Tom didn't think he'd ever had a relationship longer than Clare. "And...?"

"And..." Liam folded a napkin wiped his mouth, "I won't be doing that again."

The bitterness, laced with resentment and self-pity... that bleak road out of York circa 1916 could have been reincarnated into his mother's kitchen. "You're done with love then?" Tom's hands found his hips, but his admonition was gentle; it's not like he didn't understand. It occurred to him, "You've never been turned down before, have you?"

Liam shot him a look. "Are _you_ dispensing fatherly advice now?" _  
><em>

"You know me better." Tom pulled up a chair. "Two years it took me to decide to pursue Sybil, another three years for her to decide about me, and f you think my pride didn't take a beating..." Tom rarely admitted insecurity- his confidence was characteristic- and he had Liam's attention now. "Every day I'd see her, this woman I'd bared myself to... and every day was like being rejected again. Some days, I didn't want to see her. Other times, I'd sulk or get pissed off, even at her. Of course I did. I wouldn't be human if I hadn't."

"And?" _It's not like I don't know how it ends, _Liam thought. "Advise me, Da_."__  
><em>

"_And_ in my low moments," Tom finished, "I'd remind myself that whatever years I spent waiting for her were nothing against the years I'd spend without her if I walked away."

"It paid off- for_ you_."

"But it wasn't luck, is what I mean," Tom impressed. "Sybil was free to choose who to love, but I did what I had to do to earn it." He decided Liam would benefit from an illustration. "There was this maid, Ethel, who was keen. You know how you can tell when someone is sniffin' around?" Ethel had put a mark on him when she first arrived, but quickly discovered he had no interest. " Once, she said she wanted to see where I lived."

Liam cut him off with a shake of his head. "You would never have done that."

"Because I never_ did._ You know I never would because I never did, do you understand me?" _And __Sybil knows it too. _Liam chewed that over. "You told Clare you love her and that's fine. It's terrific. But now it's on you to _show_ her. Now, maybe she doesn't love you-"

"Hold on," Liam stopped and corrected him. "She never said she didn't love me."

Tom broke into a grin, the old open road in his mind's eye. "So you have hope."

* * *

><p><em>A Miss Aileen Branson of Dublin for Lady Sybil. <em>Anna met her at the door in a dusty pink frock, formerly one of Lady Edith's day dresses. She smiled for the child, clearly intimidated by the oppulence of the suite. She reminded Anna of a pointer with her thin, alert face. _So this is Mr. Branson's people. _She could see the resemblance; certainly in the sharpness. "You can sit," Anna told her.

Aileen remained with a wary look. "Where's Sybil?"

"In the bath. She'll be out shortly." Aileen selected a brocade chair and sat down stiffly. Anna had entered service at fourteen and remembered well how it felt to be the only imperfection in the room. "You look very nice. You have a new haircut too, I can see. All you Dublin women are very modern."

The woman was friendly and not at all what Aileen expected of a British lady. "Which sister are you?"

"_Sister_?" Anna echoed with laugh. _Lady Anna Crawley! _"I'm the maid. My name is Anna." _Wait til mum __hears about this..._

"Do you live in the castle?"

Anna mulled her answer- she doubted a city child knew the set-up of country estates. "The family live in it. I live... _underneath_ it." Aileen frowned. _She's probably been raised socialist too. _Anna tried to cast it positively. "We're like the Brownies."

The child lit up. "You read the Brownies?"

"'Harmless pranks and helpful deeds,''' Anna quoted about the popular, comic-strip sprites. "They used to be my favorite." Anna had recommended them to Tom, then in the market for a birthday present for a six-year-old niece. _Who would have ever guessed I'd meet her attending to the girls at Mr. Branson's wedding?_

Anna liked Mr. Branson. Her loyalty had to be with her employer- and Mr. Carson hade made _quite _clear there were sides to be taken- but Anna had worked amiably with Mr. Branson for years and always found the staff conversation much improved by his contributions. But their real bond was the unspoken one: their mothers.

There were two kinds of poor, her mum used to say: _poor in pocket and poor in spirit_. Poor in spirit folks were cruel and petty (O'Brien, Thomas), weak (Daisy, Jane), pathetic (Ethel). Tom Branson- like William, like Gwen- was only one. _Define yourself before others do, _as her mum said. Anna was not particularly political- she believed weath, like health or hair color, was just one of many lots drawn in life- and so did not take her economic status personally. Anna, like Mr. Branson, did not think less of herself because of her occupation. Now, Anna would never dared make a play for Mr. Matthew, but all the same, she adamantly rejected Mr. Carson's opinion that Mr. Branson's born class did not allow him to accept Lady Sybil's love.

She had a hunch Mrs. Hughes agreed. And then there was Thomas, who made a snarky comment about _Mr. Branson's newfound fortune _every minute Mr. Carson was out of earshot and then, at quarter-to five on Thursday, as Anna was about to leave for Liverpool, Thomas shuffled around the corner and shoved an envelope into her hands with a mumbled, _If you could see this over..._

The very nice stationery- the expensive kind- had been carefully addressed to _Nurse Crawley. _

"My uncle sent it to me," Aileen continued about the Brownies. "Did you know him, my uncle Tom?"

"Yes, I worked with him," Anna replied and smiled. "And he's a friend."

* * *

><p>Mrs. Branson entered the kitchen just in time to see Liam toss half a chip at Tom, and for Tom to round up and pitch it back at him; it ricocheted off a button on his vest back onto the newspaper from whence it came . Both the boys found this wildly funny. "Finish that shyte and clean yourself up, would you?" Tom waved a hand in front of his stinkface. "I don't want to smell of it and I don't want to smell <em>you<em> smelling of it at the altar."

"That's nice talk," their mother remarked. "Do you plan to kiss your wife with that mouth?"

Liam cackled. "He won't be able to reach her mouth after he stuffed his face all morn! Ma had a pound of ham and I had to fend for myself because you ate _all_ of it."

"Yeah well, you don't look like you're starvin'."

"You ate_ two pounds _of ham!" Liam joshed. "You can tell he's about to take a missus- he has a total lack of vanity. The marital malaise has set in!"

"Enough," Mrs. Branson interjected. To Tom, she instructed, "You should dress" and to Liam, "You should help him." They both protested the latter.

"What, should I tie his shoelaces?"

"Mam, I'm about to take a wife and promise my life and health and wealth to her, I think I can handle my trousers. Geesh, of all the days to be presumed incompetent..."

Mrs. Branson surrendered. "I won't miss you two hooligans around here. "

"Yes, you will," they said in unison.

* * *

><p>Mary's humor did not always translate it did not translate to Aileen Branson when Lady Mary Crawley's first comment to her <em>you know, it's considered very bad form to wear white to a wedding. It means you're angling to take the bride's place. <em>

Now, that was a comically ridiculous accusation to make of a seven-year-old, but the child in question froze at the rebuke from the black-eyed Lady who towered- physically and in every other way- over the suite. Edith rolled her eyes. "Don't pay any attention," Edith told her. "I'm Lady Edith. But you don't have to call me that."

"Lady Mary," Mary said with addendum. "And you are-?"

The child hesitated, so Anna piped in. "Miss Aileen Branson of Dublin."

Edith smiled at her. Sybil's letters made Aileen out to be a little spitfire, but she hardly seemed so now. Edith could empathize with that. "How do you do, Miss Branson?" Aileen decided she liked Lady Edith; she would steer clear of Lady Mary.

At last, Sybil came in, clad in a blue silk wrapper, water-stained in places. "I'm sorry, I was on the teleph-" Her mouth dropped open. "Your hair!"

"Yes, do you like it? It's like yours."

"Come over to the sofa so I can have a better look." Aileen still tread carefully, but Sybil showed no decorum, with one knee tucked underneath her. Aileen followed her like a shadow. As opened-minded as Anna was about the Crawley-Branson union, it was undeniably evident that Lady Sybil was doting on a child not her kind... and so were the implications of this day. She wondered what Lady Mary and Lady Edith saw. "Anna wants to curl mine today," Sybil said to Aileen, "should we curl yours as well?"

"But your hair is already curly."

"Different curls. _Better _curls- big fat curls, like Christmas crackers. What do you think?"

"I think it'll look lovely, my lady." Anna wanted to do it- it was a wedding gift she could give Lady Sybil that wouldn't raise the ire of anyone in the house.

Aileen brushed Sybil's wet hair back from her shoulders, a child's impression of ladylike daintiness. "She will look lovely no matter what because Tom is in love with her."

Edith and Mary traded a look, which Anna caught. "So you're Tom and Liam's niece?" Edith said to turn the conversation. Mary's brow shot up. _Liam? _

"Yes, Aileen is very political," Sybil said, stroking her hair. "She advises Tom's brother who works for the finance ministry," she added with a wink at the adults.

Mary was intrigued. "The finance ministry?"

"Sinn Fein's finance ministry," Sybil clarified.

That was the end of_ that_ subject. "Well! I'd say it's time to dress."

Mary waited for Edith to stand, and came behind her. "Liam...?" she whispered. "Is there another rebel in the family now?"

Edith turned and graced her sister with a Cheshire Cat-grin. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know?"

* * *

><p>Tom smoothed his hair <em>just a bit more beeswax<em> in the small mirror atop the bureau. He'd become conditioned to seeing himself with an immovable coif, how the masters liked the hired hands, impeccable if not invisible, but Sybil liked it softer; she couldn't suppress a giggle the first time she poked his head, unable to make a dent. He grinned. That was back in the autumn _in the back of the garage _with the old blanket on the floor and the low candle burning _we'd just gotten together_ and she was in his arms, astride his lap _the cutest little face __she'd made _dimples and her nose scrunched up _I'm unyielding_ he'd joked just to keep her laughing _that can't be a surprise to you_ and she'd bit her lip _no, I know you too well _took his face in her hands and kissed him. It was the happiest he'd seen her since the war started and he was the happiest he'd ever been in his life. _Come here, Nurse Crawley_ (she'd been discharged as a VAD, which depressed her terribly, but her whole face lit up when she was called by her professional title so he tried to find ways to work it in) he was going to smother her with kisses- which he did, but not before she'd sworn _I'll be Nurse Branson soon enough._

_Jesus, we were a pair then_, he chuckled, recalling her sisters constant berating of her for her daydreamy expressions and extended stares, _and myself strutting around the estate hummin' like a feckin' fool thinking of her name mixed with mine._

Their hearts and their hormones had settled down (somewhat) since that wildfire start, so that they approached today with a calibrated optimism and seriousness of purpose. _Who am I kidding_? As if he hadn't just said the other night, smothered in each other when she'd said _don't put any love marks on me anywhere where anyone can see _and he'd cocked a brow _that's pretty specific, sounds like a challenge _and she cocked one back at him _take it as you will _and in the process of taking it he'd informed her _when the priest announces us,__I'm gonna kiss the hell out of you and I don't care if the Pope himself is in the front pew_.

He checked his watch. _Half-two_. He retouched his hair once more and, satisfied with the neatness of his reflection, Tom wiped his hands and called down to his mother.

* * *

><p>It was time to dress- but first, tea. A silver platter with what seemed to Aileen to be a hundred sandwiches and pastries, each on its own doile, arrived. Aileen watched as the sisters helped themselves- but not Anna. Sybil fixed her a plate. Aileen set it down; she ate when Anna did.<p>

There was much left when everyone was finished and Aileen sidled over to Anna who was stacking the dishes for removal and asked softly, for she did not want the sisters to hear, not even Sybil. "Can I take some to my mam?"

Anna did a quick survey, but it was all butter, mayo, cheese. "I don't think they'll keep..." It's not like there was an icebox. But she knew why Aileen had asked. "What does your mother do?"

"She works in a factory." Anna nodded. Her mother had been a seamstress. Industrialization had put her out of business- she was too old, too slow, too independent of mind to be hired at the factories; those jobs went to Anna's friends and Aileen's mum. _So goes the world_. "She makes biscuits," Aileen added, and sometimes they could take home unsold, stale boxes but sometimes not. Anna also remembered well the nonchalance that this fact was relayed with.

Anna searched for a counteroffer and saw the decorative fruit bowl. Anna had never tasted citrus until she started service, the family's uneaten Christmas clementines; some maids nicked the leftovers when they cleared, but Anna would _never_ eat someone else's scraps. "Have you ever had an orange?" Aileen shook her head. "It'll put these cakes to shame." Anna peeled it and handed her a slice. "Be careful it doesn't dribble."

It was wondrous for Aileen- "It's like candy!"- and for Anna too, the flavor and succulence of fresh fruit sure beat bland stews. "I'll pack them and you can take them home to your mother."

"Won't Lady Mary be mad?" Aileen asked nervously.

"They never eat them. And if she does, I'll take the blame."

* * *

><p>She saw him first in the looking-glass, straightening his tie. "Good, you're here," he said as he caught her glance. "I need your eyes."<p>

_You have them_, she thought. _Perhaps not their color, but...  
><em>

Tom turned round so she could appraise him. "Well? Will I pass for a groom?"

She regarded him- suit pressed, shoes shined, cuffs even; relaxed, grown now, with even a few crinkles of age around the eyes- but unlike his first confession or his first job interview (both in this very room no less) he no longer needed her to improve him. "You'll be fine," she answered as her hand swept some non-existent imperfection from his shoulder, thinking that marriage was a beginning but also an end._ But also a beginning._

"Good." He shifted his shoulders inside his coat with a decidedly boyish expression of uncertainty and relief.

She had no words of wisdom _I wish to God I did _and in their stead she offered, "You know how I feel about it, but I wouldn't fault you for a drop to steady yourself. Liam hides it in the closet, if you need."

He smiled. "Nah. If Sybil's alright, I'm alright."

"She'll be fine," his mother said and meant it. "She's got some mettle in her." It was half-two, Liam was downstairs waiting, this was the last time she'd have him alone before the ceremony- well, before who knows when. Tom remained, aware of the transference. He didn't feel it like his mother felt it now; but he knew he would in twenty years or so, when he was searching out the sentiment for a young lady also named Branson (though not for long) who looked an awful lot like his bride.

"I couldn't be prouder of who are you are, who you've become. You've had to stand at the fork of what you want and what's right more times than is fair to you, son, and you always walked right. Don't think no one ever knew because _I _knew-" Her voice cracked and repaired, before she continued, "I knew and I wish I could have done better by you. You deserved it."

"Aw, Ma, don't start cryin' on me now..." But she did not. She pulled an envelope from her apron, in which he found 18 pounds in small bills. "Ma- please." He tried to hand it back, thinking of Sybil's bank passbook with its thousands, the embarrassing affluence of his new flat which he hadn't yet taken his mother to see. "You don't-"

But she insisted. "That's the money for the crossing to England- a bit late, I know." It was custom for families to pay the price of the tickets, especially for sons who would send money back, but she hadn't had anything of value to pawn. "I wanted to do it then and couldn't, so I'll do it now."

"You did as much as you could. Don't think _I _didn't know that." He couldn't say he was thankful for their privation but, "It's no small reason I'm endeavoring, and Liam too, to make this world a little less harsh for most of the people who live in it." He couldn't bear to see his mother cry, so he smiled for her now. "You could say you've been our inspiration."

"Oh... no, no." She patted his hand. "What I couldn't give you you went and got for yourself- a happy home, a happy life. I want them all for you, son. I suppose, if your Lady Sybil loves you, we can teach her the rest."

"She does." She's the one, Mam. I wasn't sure there was a one, but one afternoon I happened upon her in the kitchen and it was as plain as the sky is blue." The cold air, the brick wall, the taste of tea rushed back. "I needed to belong to her and for her to belong to me. And now we do." He lifted a shoulder and smiled. In the end, it really had been so simple.

"Come on, then-" his mother took his arm- "and let's make it official."

* * *

><p>"Have a look," Mary said softly, easing her around to the full mirror. She did.<p>

It was a tea-length dress with no train and a sweetheart decolletage that would invite discussion if there were any _dorans_ around that she bought for twelve pounds from the boutique where the woman doctor shopped. The veil would wait until the bride's room, but the short curls were there, overlaid on the sides, and Clare's lipstick (just a hint), and the shamrocks Aileen had presented her with, pinned on a bed of baby's breath in the valley close to her heart.

It was her, all in white.

It was her, the bride, on her wedding day.

The night they had run away, it had been the cream blouse and wool skirt which Mama had approved, neutral colors only on account of the war, conservative and delicate as Papa preferred it, tiny buttons and tight belts, the straps of her stay visible through the sheer fabric. But something- pearls, flowers, the clear conscience of sunlight as Mary cautioned- was missing.

The night of the day they had walked away, out the front door with heads held high, it had been the snow-white negligee, a French designer's idea of another man's fantasy, which required at least ten more years romantic experience and a withholding, self-possession in love which she had never been made to acquire. _I'm ready, _but then stumbled until she'd (literally) thrown off all those expectations. _I'm ready _she'd said and maybe she had been, or maybe she hadn't, but she'd done it anyway and isn't that what the big, grand adventure of life is all about?

_I'm ready to travel _from Ripon to York and Scotland and here and _who knows where else? _ _I'm ready_ - to succeed and to fail too; to learn and rise up and fight again; to see what else this great world has to offer, to become a wife and a mother maybe too; to fall deeper in love and let the universe unfold and reveal itself. _Who knows what the future will bring? _That's what made it the future. That's what made it wonderful. After all, who could have foreseen she'd be here?

_I don't know quite what to expect but I'm ready_.

She was.

After all this time, the reflection in the mirror was _her._


	86. Chapter 86: The Wedding Part IV

_thank you so much as ever! sorry for the delay- RL. note in comments. thanks again!  
><em>

* * *

><p>The Branson boys and their mother arrived at St. Michael's church wet around the edges but not the worse for wear and clomped in their rain-boots single-file down the catacomb-like passage that led to the cellar chapel. At the door bearing a crooked, homemade sign "Bride's Room" in an elderly church lady's careful cursive, Mrs. Branson took her leave of them. "The next time we see each other, you'll be a married man." She conducted a sharp once-over, made Tom turn around so she could inspect his suit for lint, ordered Liam to stand up straight.<em> Like Tom<em>. He'd always had perfect posture and not from service either. He'd walked tall from his first school day- even at six, eminently sure and ready with a smile. As now. _The best of all of them_. "Good luck, my son."

She made them to walk on before she went in, lest Tom catch a peek at Sybil. "Who knew you were superstitious?" he called back over his shoulder. "Give my bride a kiss for me."

Mrs. Branson reached for the doorknob. _Now for the daughter._

* * *

><p>In Yorkshire, the rain had tapered.<p>

And O'Brien, who had for the last month feigned amnesia about her home country in the face of Cora's badgering about the Irish Republican Brotherhood versus the Irish Republican Army and why the _Irish Times _seemed to hate Irish freedom, had on _this_ day a sudden recollection of a relevant Irish proverb which she wrote on a notecard slipped onto Her Ladyship's breakfast tray.

Cora had called upon it several times already today to soothe her. She took it out once more at the windows in Sybil's bedroom where she had taken refuge.

She used to take refuge in the nursery, after tea and minor humiliations with her mother-in-law, while Mary and Edith were in their lessons. She could still hear that high, bright cry- "Mama!"- still feel the lazy sun, the toddler's weight on her lap. _Big enough now to have another, _Violet pressed with her words. Robert pushed with action. He loved her, but she'd come to dread the nights, him rolling off, the onus that remained, the inevitable disappointment. "Perhaps you will always be my baby," Cora murmured. "That would be enough for us, wouldn't it?" Her daughter's dark head shook under her chin. _I am not __a baby. _"Oh, that's right," the mother smiled. "My beauty, then."

* * *

><p>"Sybil bet me that I'd cry before her today," Tom remarked as he and Liam walked to the vestry.<p>

"Oh? What'd you wager?"

"Nothing. Of course I will, Liam- it's my _bride._" Tom laughed and his brother joined in- Tom could be overcome by the Dail speeches printed on leaflets and passed covertly on the tram, never mind his love at the altar. "The more interesting odds are Sybil and Mam."

"Mam, for sure," Liam bet. "Sybil's iron-clad. Ma just pretends she is."

Tom was about to quibble with that, but he fell silent as his first sight of the chapel was revealed. The dark, stormy afternoon had been vanquished by candles that flickered off the stone and the wild red flowers on the altar, the white runner down the aisle. There was cast over the whole space a warm, sunset hue, as if Nature and its elements had been spellbound. It was hushed and reverent and luminescent.

Tom did not believe in God, but if he were ever to be convinced... But Sybil believed, _perhaps He did all this for her_. He smiled to himself. There was much Tom had hoped for, but this seemed more than any man deserved. His chest tightened. He had been born into some of the lowest circumstances on earth and this exultant scene was his. Because of his mother's hard work and his own and a woman who had the fortitude and character to live the values she proclaimed, without whom his present and future were not possible. _That _he did believe in.

He must thank Mary and Edith too for dissuading Sybil from wedding over a blacksmith's anvil. He could give her better than that and now he had- not big or grand, but romantic. _As romantic as a nondescript hotel in Liverpool_. Oh, yes- after this ideal afternoon would come the honeymoon. She'd have the very best tonight- that he would make sure of, no money or title needed. The bedroom was a meritocracy, though Lord Grantham could be forgiven for not considering that aspect of his daughter's match. _Lie back and think of England_ was what his kind told their wives. _No threat of that, _he chuckled.

"What are you smiling about?" Liam asked.

Tom could only shake his head at his fortune. "What am I _not_ smiling about today?"

* * *

><p>The Bride's Room looked more like a flea market.<p>

Anna and Sybil were at the "vanity"- a hand mirror propped on a plant stand (the plant unceremoniously displaced to the floor) attempting to affix Sybil's veil, Aileen and Lady Edith seated were behind them on a ripped sofa making up a flower girl's bouquet, as Lady Mary paced between. Mrs. Branson had never met Lady Mary, the de facto leader here, who did not appear to be terribly useful. _A bunch of unmarried girls helping another unmarried girl. _This painting would be titled _Room in Need of a Mother, _Mrs. Branson chuckled.

"Alright, girls. Let's get sorted."

Like a General, she came and conquered. Anna was thanked, relieved, and sent into the chapel. Aileen was sent to fetch Liam to escort the sisters to their seats. Mrs. Branson took over with the veil- and, in the absence of Aileen or Anna, Lady Mary was deputized to hold pins, combs and root around Mrs. Branson's purse. Edith, who had seen Mrs. Branson in action at the house, sat back and watched with amusement.

At one point, Edith overheard Sybil tell Tom's mother, "Do you know the cake-maker wanted two pounds extra for delivery?"

Mrs. Branson started. "What did he think, that you'd eat it in the shop?"

"That's what I said."

"I hope you didn't pay it."

"I certainly did not!"

Mrs. Branson didn't hide her surprise, but she did credit her. "Good. Good for you."

Out of view, Edith smiled.

* * *

><p>The groom's staging area was the vestry (no sign), the chapel antechamber where the priests' vestments were kept. One chair had been brought in for Tom's comfort, which left Liam free to roam and poke around. Liam's mood had brightened as the time drew near- he'd been to several friends' weddings since he'd graduated, all of which were grand. The Irish knew how to celebrate- a curious talent, since their miserable history afforded so few reasons for it. The current political climate in Ireland was tense but cautiously optimistic, but this event was about hope for the future. And as for his own future? That was murkier. He took a purple stole off the rack and draped it around his neck- once a mischievous alter boy, always one- then turned to his brother. "I could always marry The Lord."<p>

"Put it back," Tom warned him wisely.

Liam did- "Yes, I suppose the situation isn't that dire"- after all, Clare hadn't said she _didn't _love him_._

Tom mustered a wan smile. As Liam's disposition improved, Tom's had deteriorated. His stomach churned. _Shouldn't have had that pint. _But that wasn't it. It was what he was about to do, to promise. _Every minute... _The conversations with Frank and Ma, the resurrected spectre of his father, hadn't helped his confidence.

_You've had to stand at the fork of what you want and what's right and you always walked right, _his mother had said to him. His father had walked wrong, obviously. End of parable. But perhaps it was more complicated; the fork itself. Were there people for whom there was only one road, where desire and duty never split? _I think it would be a great mistake to think he didn't care. _Was that their heed?

"Liam." His brother was rifling around the Communion chalices. "Do you think it's in us?"

_It_ remained undefined, but Liam- _only_ Liam- understood. Tom's tone and face, their past, provided more than adequate explication. He immediately set down the cup, turned his attention to his brother and started to say-

"Uncles!" Aileen ran in, Father Fahey at her heels. "It's time! It's time!"

"I hear it's time," Tom joked to Liam, who he assumed was thankful for the interruption.

Aileen was at his waist, beckoned him to bend down. "She looks _so_ _beautiful." _The child's hands clasped behind her back with a teasing grin. "You'll like her, I think."

"Scoot," Liam said as Father Fahey ushered them out. Liam offered his brother the standard male handshake-to-stiff-embrace. But when he was near to Tom's ear, he answered, "Not in you. I know it's not in you."

* * *

><p>Edith was excited as she accepted Liam's offer to escort her to her seat- small affair or not, she adored weddings and it had been ages since she'd been to one. Liam smiled warmly at her once they were alone. "Hello."<p>

"Hello," she smiled back.

She had chosen a peach dress for the occasion. Liam looked her up and down- unabashedly- terribly improper, but Edith found she did not mind. Quite the contrary. "You look wonderful," he complimented.

"So do you." He was spiffed up in proper suit- actually tailored, unlike the one from last night. _Same awful cologne though. _ She admired him without ardor- it didn't bother her to see him again or his blonde sweetheart already seated two rows behind her. Yes, they had kissed- rather passionately and scandalously- but Edith did not want to marry in a church basement or live in a two-room flat or secede from the Empire, so Liam Branson was a moot point.

She was not Sybil.

Sometimes Edith was not sure who she was, or who she would become, but it was not her sister; this Ireland trip had proven that. Edith liked their world, with its rare-book libraries and art collections; she liked tea with Granny and the Great Hall decorated for Christmas. She'd like a little more social freedom- but only that.

Still, it was fun to pretend. For a weekend.

"Save me a dance?" Liam whispered when they arrived at her seat. Edith was noncommittal. She felt Clare's eyes on them as Liam pecked her on the cheek. _Oh well. _She hoped they would be happy.

* * *

><p>Father Fahey had cleared the room on purpose. Grooms were often as nervous as their brides about the responsibilities of matrimony and parenthood, but it was frowned upon for them to show it. Father Fahey didn't expect Tom to open up to a priest, but he was also a veteran officiant. "I've done hundreds of these."<p>

"You must be bored of it by now."

"It's never the same," the priest told him. "Every couple is different, as is every love."

Tom sized him up- priests never made casual chat. He couldn't tell what Father Fahey was up to, but _what the hell _he took the bait. "Does everyone who comes here think they're in love?"

It was skepticism- _I__n northside Dublin? Not likely_- but Father Fahey heard another doubt. "Love is love," he stated. "A person can love a little or a lot and more than one at once, like God and country, or in contradiction, like the Church and socialism- even if he shouldn't." Tom smiled; it had been awhile since he'd been scolded by a priest. "A parent and a spouse who are at odds. You know that firsthand."

Tom did, but he didn't follow the Father's point. "Love is love. Marriage is your word." The priest paused, let him take in the juxtaposition, before he continued, "You are not tasked to feel. You are tasked to do what you said you would." It was his lecture for all his soon-to-be-spouses. "Do you understand?"

"Sure, but... that's easy advice from a priest." _ A celibate man with no experience with love or marriage.  
><em>

"You think I don't know about vows?" The priest was incredulous. "You lads think we're blind. I assure you we are not."

"Forgive me, Father," Tom said, duly chastened by the rejoinder. "I don't mean to sound unsure. I love Sybil and I am wholly devoted to her."

"Of course you are. That doesn't mean you can't be scared."

_It would be a great mistake to think he didn't care. _"My own father- you know he abandoned us." Tom had never phrased it as such: _abandoned us. _"I can't help but wonder if he was once one of those couples in love." He swallowed. "I think he loved me. He drank, but... I don't know. I don't remember him as bad. I think he just couldn't help himself."

"Alcohol is a terrible vice."

"'Tis, but... I don't think it was just that." Drink could be a root or a weed; there was much rooted in his father. Dissatisfaction. Frustration. Self-destruction. _The slop plot. _An absurd action which had once seemed reasonable_, _justifiable. _The fork. _Worse than a choice between two paths was in the inability to tell them apart. "That's what scares me. Scares me shyteless, if I'm honest."

Father Fahey knew Tom was a mechanic by trade, one who operated in scientific method_- _test, identify, tune, fix._ The unresolvable m__ust drive him mad._ Faith was not in his tool kit. "If you ask me- and I'm only a priest- marriage should put the fear of God in you," he reassured Tom with a smile. "I think you'll be fine."

* * *

><p>Cora lost on dinner. Robert had demanded that <em>this <em>day, when the demarcation between upstairs and downstairs would be incontrovertibly blurred, be absolutely undisturbed in schedule or tenor. They would dress for dinner, where they would discuss safe topics: post-war charitable causes, remodeling the London house. And Cora would eat and contribute as much as necessary to keep the servants quiet. This last part need not be stated- it was understood. As she understood that Robert's _as it's only us, we can retire early without suspicion _was a concession to her- a heavy lift, but mercifully short-lived.

Robert attempted a smile- his first in several weeks, she noted- _That particular suspicion, that is, _he amended, a pitiful strike at entrendre, worse for its groping tone. She laid her hand on his arm and felt his seasickness, his search for a port in the storm. _A captain no more_, _but a father still_. A father hurting, like her. And Cora Crawley, _née_ American, could foresee her Lord Grantham was a man out of time and his little girl was only the first thing he was about to lose on the drift of a bold new century.

How would she meet this inevitability? Let him twist in the wind or take him in her arms? Her husband did not need her pity or her prognostications; he needed her support. And what did her daughters need her to be to him? Her hand drew up to his hair, down to the back of his neck. "We should take advantage of an empty nest," she said and kissed him softly. His expression opened like a night orchid- _he really was so easy _despite outward appearance. Cora told him she would see him later. She would dine with him, converse with him, and make love with him- yes, on the night of the day he had kept her from their daughter's wedding.

She would do it- and not with spite, but perspective. She would do it because _marriage is a long game- _thirty years and counting for them, _Sybil is only on day one-_ and there was still much to play for.

_This _was what her letter to Sybil was about.

* * *

><p>Sybil requested time to read her mother's letter and Mrs. Branson made sure she had it. Her sisters and Aileen had been shooed out (the bridal deputy reluctantly so) and it was just the two of them.<p>

"You make a very fine bride." Mrs. Branson complimented her as Tom once had, back when his interest made her stammer and blush. It was true, she was radiant. Her new-bride shine, pedigree and ingrained elegance transcended the cheap dress. _No mistaking her. _"He did always like the pretty ones." Once more, Mrs. Branson marveled at her son- how had he even started talking to a girl like her? _N__othing he doesn't think he can get._ "I'll leave you to yourself, then."

Tom's mother was not sentimental like her own, nor did she have any particular fondness for her, so Sybil simply thanked her. "For your hospitality and for coming around." Mrs. Branson's chin retracted at her presumption- _Oh, __have I?-_ to which Sybil qualified, "More than my own parents, at least."

A smile peeked out of Mrs. Branson's weathered face. Lady Sybil would have to learn not to take liberties if she were to make it here. But, that's what she was here for. She reached to smooth Sybil's veil on one side, unable to recall when her hands had started to spot brown. "I suppose we can't both be Mrs. Branson," she proposed. "You'd better start callin' me Ma."

"I don't think I could ever call anyone _Ma_," Sybil retorted; it did sound ridiculous in her Queen's English. "But perhaps Mother would do."

In a better world, Mòr Branson would not have had to wait thirty years for a lively girl to call her that. In this one, she started to cry.

* * *

><p>Sybil couldn't believe she'd made Mrs. Branson cry. <em>Goodness! <em>She had mostly proposed "Mother" as a practical solution- she was also neither so fond nor sentimental- and they didn't have that kind of relationship. But Mrs. Branson's weepy overreaction would put Mama to shame.

_Mama_.

She sat down and started to read.

_Hold fast to this day- every moment, every memory- it will be over in a blink_.

Mama's first piece of marital advice to her, in the section about her own nuptials- a bewildered American bride overrun by British bluebloods and their armies of staff- which, she conceded at the end, was probably not all that relevant to Sybil. Her mother was not known for her concision.

There was a section about little Sybil and her incipient radicalism, like demanding to ride astride like the American Long Rider ladies, to which her weary parents replied- ironically- that once she was married, she could ride however she liked._  
><em>

And on that topic... there was also the required manual on _the marriage bed_, abstruse and rife with euphemism. _Y__ou_ _husband should dedicate himself to your duteous development before any att__empt at marital induction. A half hour is usually sufficient... _Sybil was half-tempted to write back that she found _your instructions on the subject impenetrable_- Mama would die of mortification! If only Mama knew how much she'd learned at the hospital. _Any daughter of mine will be prepped with an anatomy book._

* * *

><p>Well, Mary could now say she'd been propositioned by a Sinn Fein revolutionary.<p>

That was all she knew about Tom's brother so when he offered his arm to her, he was rebuffed with her inimitable _you can't be serious _face and a flat "_No_." Rebel chivalry was but one example of the absurdity of this upside-down affair. Edith was on a first-name basis with the enemy apparently, and even Anna seemed a bit screwy: earlier, she'd inexplicably raided the decorative fruit bowl. _Had they run out of food downstairs?_

Mary looked around. There was the little urchin niece (whose Communion outfit would put a Sicilian to shame)... Branson''s shrewish mother in a mended dress... an older-ish couple (presumably relatives) seated behind her. Mary watched them awhile: the round-faced wife yammered without a breath to the husband who never said a word. Rounding out the cast of characters was a blonde woman painted like a prostitute and a dark-haired man who was obviously a homosexual.

It was a sad little affair.

These next few hours would be torturous. And mostly in Latin. She wanted to support Sybil- she just preferred to do it in the confines of their hotel suite.

_What did you think, you'd marry the chauffeur... _

Mary laughed- what else was there to do?- _and here we are_!

But she had to admit, Sybil was so much more self-assured than she had been in that stairwell, as if she had matured ten years in two. And she was undeniably happy- as happy as a bride should be about her mate and her future. Sad, _but honest_.

Perhaps she should put more stock in her own predictions.

* * *

><p>Liam counted the attendees: four on the bride's side (Edith, Mary, their maid, Clare<em>)<em>_, _four on Tom's side (Mam, Frank, Maeve and Tom's photojournalist friend). Himself, Aileen, Tom and Sybil made twelve. _Everyone present and accounted for. _

A dozen pews for a dozen people. If he married Clare, there would be two-hundred people before they even started on second cousins. An empty church- the full cost and consequence of their choice, which hadn't quite sunk in for Liam before now. What did anyone care who they chose to love? It was their life to live.

He had screwed up_- _they all had, Tom and Sybil's Irish family. _We should have tracked down some distant Branson with a barn, thrown a party and invited the whole damn town. _

He practically sprinted to the Bride's Room.

* * *

><p>Liam found her by herself, hunched over a letter, like a toy left on the shelf after the holiday rush. Sybil looked up in surprise- he realized he'd just burst in on her. He didn't want to worry her. "Sybil..." But the words were hard to find, like a condolence- which it was, somewhat. She watched him, confused, as he shuffled before her. "I'll walk you. You shouldn't have to do it alone."<p>

Sybil released a breath in relief. "Thank you, Liam. But there's no need for that." Her decision and her peace was made. She rose to meet him. "There aren't a lot of people out there, but all of them are in our corner. Even you." She smiled. "As improbable as that is."

"I am. Truly." It was awkward- now, he was just interrupting her- and he produced, as a feeble justification, "Clare sat on your side. I don't want you to be surprised when you see it."

"Liam... I'm sorry." She promised to plead his case at the reception.

"Nah, don't trouble about it. It's your and Tom's day." The church bells told of the hour- he needed to let her get on. In lieu of a profound or cliched expression, he went for a hug. A full one, both arms around her shoulders. Sybil was taken aback; unlike his mother, Liam _was_ affectionate- just not to her. He had accepted her as Tom's tolerated fiancee, no more. This was her entrée into the family. "Be good to him, Princess. He wants so much to be good to you."

"I know," she said into his shoulder. "And I will."

* * *

><p>Sybil had only one section left- good, because Mama was about to make her late. Although she couldn't truly be late, could she? It wasn't like it could start without her.<p>

She read on.

_And now, my dearest, for what is difficult. You should not like to hear it, which makes it all the more important that you do._

_It is a curious moment of life when a daughter begins to look upon her mother as a woman first. I recall precisely this moment with you- at dinner, when Papa confronted us about our deception around the liberal rally. I remember your disappointment, so evident in your face and posture, in what you perceived as my weakness, my refusal to stand up for myself. I could hear your silent verdict: No husband of mine__._

Yes, she had thought that- and her opinion hadn't changed. Why dredge it up now?

_But let me ask you now, one woman to another, what was the alternative? That I meet my husband's outburst with one of my own? Undercut him in front of the staff and his children in the pursuit of "equal" treatment? Demand he be less concerned with your safety? __I yielded because I knew his emotion was sincere- he was upset that I had been careless with your welfare and I would never want him to be otherwise. You may see that as female weakness, a woman's wrongful submission to a husband. I do not. _

Sybil rolled her eyes. If this was about to become an apologia for her father-

_My pride submits to my love. My husband is my ally, not my opponent, he is never raised up at my expense. But we can't all be captains and Presidents- without followers, there could be no leaders. Don't let your pride prevent you from giving your husband the benefit of the doubt, as it so often did with your father. Your behavior positioned him as your enemy, but do you truly doubt his aim is anything but the best for you?_

_My darling, I don't deny that it was hard for you, __but the future will be hard too. Y_ou have put yourself in a much more precarious situation than your previous one. _I fear you will discover that you've merely traded one set of freedoms for another. You were determined to marry this man at any cost- I hope it's worth it. Let your love rule you. Pride is petty against love. Pride doesn't move mountains and independence can't create life. With love all things are possible. Put love in its rightful place, above all else, above yourself. It will be a challenge for you to abide anyone, as you simply haven't had the practice. I suppose that's on your father and me._

_Perhaps you'll dismiss this out of hand because I'm old-fashioned and conventional, not an intrepid, modern woman like you. _I saw often the admiration and respect you looked upon Cousin Isobel with, how determined you were to prove yourself to her. _I have thought that I'm not the mother you needed or deserved.___

_I suppose, in the end, her attention shaped you more than mine ever did and will be more useful to you in your chosen life than mine. But please do not think I was any less glad to give it_.

_I await the day when there is a woman Prime Minister and husbands take their wives' names and you can read this letter back to me and gloat about how terribly backward your mother was. Until then,_

_I am and remain,_

_Your loving Mama_

* * *

><p>The clocks chimed four. Cora touched her forehead to the pane, the notecard pressed between her thumb and forefinger as a newborn palm had once been. <em>Go, beauty. <em>

Violet had asked about her letter the other day. "Have you written to Sybil?"

"Yes. She won't_ listen_," Cora emphasized, one battle-worn parent to another, "but at least she will have heard it. That's all I can do, I'm afraid." The lettuce in her salad tasted bitter and she set down her fork; Violet frowned at her lack of appetite. "Did you reach out to her?"

"Oh no," Violet fibbed. "No, no. That would be quite inappropriate and if Robert found out- whew!" Cora concurred miserably. She had cried in front of Violet a dozen times in these last weeks and Violet did not want to make it thirteen. "Roses are in bloom, I see..."

A sea away, Sybil kissed the last page of her mother's letter and returned it to its envelope.

* * *

><p>It had been nearly twenty minutes since the bell had tolled and the guests were beginning to wonder, whisper and worry- all except Tom. Like an top athlete, his jitters had receded as soon as he took the field. Others, however, were not so calm. His mother leaned forward to him, handsomely in his place at the alter with the addition of a boutonniere: a white rose and a sprig of shamrock. "Should I check on her, son?"<p>

"I'll do it!" Aileen volunteered. Liam caught her by the back of her collar.

Frank's wife Maeve craned her neck. "Aren't Protestants supposed to be punctual?"

Clare thought that perhaps Sybil had discovered _Tom's as faithless as his brother. _

Improbably, it was Mary who broke the burgeoning tension. "Maybe she ran away," she posed loudly, which made everyone laugh. Tom grinned; she wasn't worried either. "You can't say she hasn't done it before."

"I have known her to take her sweet time. She's never shied from making me wait," the groom conceded, "and I've never been disappointed."

* * *

><p>The bell-ringer came down to hold the door for her. He was as old as Time itself, but his withered arms deceived and the heavy wood was no match for them. He looked terribly water-logged though. "Is it still pouring out?" Sybil asked.<p>

"'Tis," he confirmed, "but never you mind about the storm." He had a rough accent and his English sounded like it was being funneled through a mouthful of rocks. "Travellers need the tide and the wind."

"Oh?" she replied gamely. "Am I going somewhere?"

"Don't you know what we say?" He merrily relayed to her the old Irish proverb-:

_Marry when June roses blow_

_Over the land and sea you will go._


	87. Chapter 87: The Wedding Part V

_thanks so much as always!_

* * *

><p>There was no music save the storm outside, the percussive beat of the rain on the walls and windows, the rattle of the panes in their frames, the low rumble of thunder carried on the advancing fleet of dark clouds outside, but everyone stood when Sybil appeared in the candlelight. She did not cover her face with her veil, but had clipped it behind her under a fashionable cap- <em>just look at me, <em>Tom had said and she wanted to make sure she could.

At the end of the aisle, Tom folded and re-folded his hands as everyone turned their eyes to her, feeling her first step as he would his first child's- with his heart in his throat- but she was fine, sturdy and steady, unfazed. _Of course she is, she's iron-clad_, as even Liam knew. Tom relaxed (a little) and took in the vision of his bride.

The moment he would have waited forever for._  
><em>

His bride, his beautiful bride- she could have married anyone and she chose to marry him, over so many doubts and objections (many which had come from people in these pews) and obstacles. If they were possible, anything was._ If we are possible, _everything_ is_.

He saw all their possibility in her pastoral smile- soft and open like a field in summer, wholesome and bountiful- as she came toward him. Tom Branson was of the city, but the country is where he fell in love and those metaphors would always be hers; the contentment they spoke of was theirs. _Just look at me, _he had said and she did- not the chapel all done up for them, nor her family or his or their friends or the priest either. Their eyes remained only with each other as she traversed the shortest distance they'd ever had to close between them.

_Look at me_, the first time her hand found his_, s__ee past the differences._ _See? There's something the same in us._

_Look at me_, as he put it all on the line- his job, his heart, their future, _b__et on me. I've already bet on you_.

_Look at me_, when she came very late with the answer that was inevitable,_ Yes__.  
><em>

_Look at me_, so close but too far from Scotland she made her first vow, _I will. We will. I promise you.  
><em>

_Look at me_, in front of her family and in front of her father, in hotel room in Liverpool,_ I am sure_ _and I am ready. _

_Someday_ had come_. _

It was all there, in both their minds, as she came toward him- the lavender sky, the garage at night, the archway in York, the map with Gretna Green circled on the floor of the car, the railway stations there and here, the sea and the stars- the places they had travelled to reach this destination. Their destiny.

Sybil arrived at the altar and took a moment to take in her chosen husband. _ So handsome _that her heart started to beat faster, presentation neat as ever _the beeswax is back, we'll have to deal with that__ at __home__- _and the smile she loved most in the world. _I couldn't have done it without you._

_Yes, you could_, Tom assured her before they drew their eyes from each other and turned their attention to the priest.

The priest nodded benevolently at the bride, all by herself in front of him, and asked as scripted, as she had requested, "Who gives this woman to be wed to this man?"

"I do," Sybil answered brightly and Mary and Edith had never been prouder of her. To see her little sister vanquish in two words their mother's cruelest heed about the changing world- _not that fast and not soon enough for you_- made Mary want to stand up and cheer.

Someone beat her to it. "Hear, hear!" boomed a voice with an indeterminate Continental accent from the back- Erich, who could feel the tension in the chapel but being neither Irish nor English, Catholic nor Protestant, lower-class nor blue blood was of the opinion _For God's sake put all that aside and let them have their day. _To him, Tom and Sybil were a lovely couple who only wanted to live their lives, as anyone would. As everyone _should_ be able to. If the family members in this chapel needed to be reminded of that this afternoon, he would be pleased to do it.

Little Aileen's head whipped around- who dared shout out_ in church_ and disrupt Sybil's wedding?- but the women, Anna and Clare too, all nodded. _Amen_. "Hear, hear," Tom echoed and everyone chuckled with him. Tom put his hand on Aileen's shoulder and explained, "You're allowed to interrupt to praise the bride."

The priest indicated for him take his place beside Sybil; when he did, their hands as ever found each other's. The priest frowned a little because it was not yet time for that, but _well hell, that's never stopped them before_. He pushed up his spectacles, cleared his throat and cried out-:

_Rejoice! __the angels say, __for today is a wedding day!_

* * *

><p>The seminal lesson came before seminary, in the 19th century when Sybil was still on her mother's lap and Tom was nicking apples on a bicycle, when Father Fahey was still only Sean Fahey, sixteen years old and serious. It was delivered by his only little sister, twelve, curious, precocious and sometimes a pest, as little sisters are wont to be, after he admonished her <em>quit rattling the Gates like Adam.<em>

His sister's intelligent brow furrowed. It doesn't say that, she informed him. _That Adam rattled the Gates. That he wanted to go back._

That nonsensical claim was dismissed by the elder brother. "Of course he did, it was_ Paradise. _You don't know the story."

"Show me," she demanded.

Off the shelf came the family Bible; he read aloud Genesis 3: "And the Lord God sent him out of Eden, to till the earth from which he was taken. And He cast out Adam; and placed before the gates of paradise cherubs and a sword of fire to keep the way of the Tree of Life."

"Go on," she directed. He made it to the next line. "Ha! Told you," she declared in all her preteen triumph. "Maybe _you_ don't know the story." He was left to search for Adam and Eve's repentance, which of course he did not find. And it troubled him very much- not its absence, but his assumption.

This was lesson, never lost in his subsequent decade of scholarship: Genesis was God's version not Adam and Eve's. How did it feel when they kissed for the first time? Held humanity's first baby? What attracted them to each other? What made them laugh? Did they feel sorry? Did they ever want to give up? No one will know because no one ever asked them; their story- the _real _story- lies unwritten in the white space. In print, they are only sinners.

Father Fahey had not seen his sister in many years, but she visited him often- like when the star-crossed couple came into his office on their way to Howth and he reversed his own decision and rewrote their story to say, _Yes__,_ _June 21st at four o'clock_.

* * *

><p>The Mass proceeded as it would. It was <em>easy on the Latin<em> as Tom had asked. The readings (only in English), then the Gospel (Matthew, with the weather as an accompaniment) which exhorted them to build their house on rock so that when the rain comes and the wind beats and the streams rise, their house will still stand. Sybil and Tom had both always liked this parable immensely- there was not much shifting sand in either of them and they would be doubly solid and strong together.

Then came the homily, which would be on the theme of marriage and prefaced the nuptial rite. Father Fahey shuffled his notes on the pulpit- he had spent several hours on his speech. "I must tell you, you two gave me quite a challenge. Most couples just want to get to the kiss as quickly as possible." _That would have been alright,_ Tom thought drily. Sybil shushed him with a pat of her hand on his.

Most couples got the standard __love one another as Christ loves the Church et cetera __but Father Fahey felt Tom and Sybil's particular circumstances demanded more. He looked out at his threadbare audience, starkly divided in dress and class, creed and culture, nationality and blood- and bloodshed soon too, if Ireland's revolutionaries stayed their course. He observed the squared, mildly defensive posture of the English sisters, as if the Catholic Mass were spoiled milk they'd been served but were too polite to point out, the palpable suspicion of the Branson clan toward _their kind_; these Irish Catholics would not be mocked in their own Church, the only part of their country the British had not plundered, which their constant, hawk-eyed stares at the Ladies conveyed. _So much evident strife, so many scars, even on this happy day._

The priest's gaze settled on the betrothed, seated in position of honor in front, with their rosy, candlelit cheeks and youthful optimism. Only one parent between them was present. Only one married couple was in attendance- Tom's older brother and his wife- despite the fact that all but little Aileen were of marriageable age. Tom and Sybil were holding hands, as they had that first day in his office. __If there are people to be pitied in this chapel, it is not them. __He felt that very much needed to be said- and he would.

"Marriage is a beginning. The Bible begins with an act of creation- 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth'- and then Man and Woman, for his companionship."

It was unorthodox to speak a homily on the Old Testament, but what of this wasn't? Priests also liked to bend rules.

"And Adam and Eve lived happily ever after in Paradise." The audience sat up; he had their attention now. "Of course, as we know, that is _not _how it went. Because the world- _our_ world- didn't really begin with an act of creation. It began with an act of rebellion."

_Rebellion_- a charged word in this chapel. The pews creaked as people shifted in their seats, sucked in their breath. _Bloody Christ_, Clare thought with an audible exhale that Liam heard. _Surely he's not about to use their wedding to wave the bloody flag about Ireland_! Liam turned, searched her out across twelve pews to channel _calm yourself_. Clare scowled. _Don't tell me what to do, you're not _my_ husband_.

Father Fahey continued.

"An act of rebellion by Eve and Adam, who defy God in the Garden. When God confronts them, who is it that shows fear? Not them. It is God who is afraid- afraid they will eat from the Tree of Life and become immortal like Him. God is afraid of _them_. How can that be? He is all-powerful. He's been undone by His own children- whom he created, whom he loved, whom he sought to protect. Adam and Eve defied Him, so He condemns Adam to hard labor, Eve to labor pains, and banishes them to make their home in the dust and dirt of the wasteland outside Eden."

Not a creak, not a breath, not even a blink from the audience.

"And what is the first sentence after the banishment? 'He cast out Adam' and then this: 'And Adam knew his wife who conceived.' An act of creation. Not from God- from Man and Woman." The priest smiled. "In other words, God cast them out and they went on a honeymoon." The audience tittered, despite their confusion that this rendition of Genesis was coming from a Roman Catholic priest.

"We don't often hear the story told that way. We hear about the sin- the sin, the punishment, the banishment. But for that, none of this would exist. None of us would exist. We are all born of that first defiance- the same bloodline into which God sent His Only Son, born to Mary in the dust and dirt of the stable. In its full context- from _in the beginning _to this day, it is not a story of sin, but endurance. Would any of us- the children of the wasteland- want Adam and Eve to have obeyed?"

It was said. Whether the audience heard it, received it, Father Fahey couldn't tell. But it had been said.

The priest's gaze returned once more to the betrothed. __It will be hard for you- __much of the earth and Dublin was still a wasteland, rife with blight and storms and evil_- ___but you will endure. You will endure. __"I repeat to you God's instruction for humanity's first marriage: Thomas, cling to your wife, she is your home now. Sybil, let your desire be for your husband and let him rule over you. If you both keep those commandments, you will never be in conflict but will be one in spirit and flesh."

Naturally, that was immediately discounted by Sybil (and Tom, who had no desire to "rule over" anyone, let alone his beloved and trusted spouse), but in the pew behind them Mrs. Branson surprised herself. _He's right. That's right_. If Michael's need had been for her, he'd have done what she needed him to do (the root of all their conflict)- he'd be here now, in the flesh, to see their fine boy married.

"Your love, like God's love, is omnipresent- wherever you are, let your love be your shelter, your summer, your Garden for it is in marriage, in the bond of love, that God prophesies Paradise." Father Fahey returned to his notes for the first time since he started speaking. The priest had two conclusions for wedding homilies- the Song of Songs for love-matches, St. Paul for everyone else- but there was no question that Tom and Sybil, with their secret forbidden love, were poetry:

__Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away__

__For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone__

__The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come __

Edith and Erich both knew the passage and murmured along.

_Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice_

_My beloved is mine, and I am his_

_Until the day break, and the shadows flee away_

* * *

><p>The priest beckoned them both to come forward to state their consent. He called Tom "Thomas" which sounded funny to Sybil, as she never called him that and never heard anyone (not even his mother) call him that. But then, she'd for years called the man she was about to take as her husband <em>Branson<em>, which was probably more odd.

Their mutual consent stated and witnessed, the priest told them to join hands and make their vows to each other before God.

Tom had rehearsed his vow. For years. He first memorized it before Gretna Green because he feared the blacksmith wouldn't bother with ceremony, he'd just take his fee and declare it done- and that simply would not do for her or them. In the end, Tom hadn't needed the words in Scotland, but he still had his vow by heart and from his heart it came:

"I, Thomas," he said, proud and sure, "take thee, Sybil, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."

Sybil learned her vow in the moment. A war nurse, she was at her best under pressure. She was also a natural and careful student. She listened closely to the words Tom spoke to her- absorbed them, understood them- from the teacher who had always taken an interest in her and her potential, who believed in her and loved her from the start:

"I, Sybil," she said, determined and true, "take thee, Thomas, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."

The priest requested the ring, which Liam produced.

Tom had purchased it from a jeweller on Sackville Street, admittedly intimidated both by the importance of the task and to be in the disposable-income class. He didn't have much to spend, so a simple gold band it was (not that his conscience could have stood a diamond one_,_ when there were destitute women and children literally around the corner)_, _but he paid extra to have their names and the date carved inside, as was the custom (or so the jeweller said). He hoped she would like it.

The priest blessed it on the Bible and Tom slid it onto Sybil's hand. "Sybil, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and fidelity." Love and fidelity- and so much more. Respect. Equal partnership. Acceptance. Loved for who she truly was and supported in who she aspired to be. Freedom, so hard-won, from the confines and prejudices of that old life. For some women, this band was a shackle. For her, it was wings. Mary and Edith couldn't quite believe their eyes when Tom raised his thumb to wipe their sister's cheek; Papa and Granny wouldn't believe it either.

As the priest exhorted _w__hat God has joined together must not be put asunder _Tom raised Sybil's hand, kissed its ring, and sealed it.

* * *

><p>Five years since the start of the War and in six minutes- less than the time it used to take her to walk from big, grand house to the garage- they were married.<p>

How did it feel to be married? Not so different, as the Mass simply resumed- no announcement, no kiss, no applause. The Protestants- and indeed, the bride- were a bit unsure as to whether they were married at all!

They were, of course, confirmed in a humorous moment that followed the Eucharist and the intercessions (carefully scrubbed of political controversy, i.e. "We pray for the wisdom of the world's leaders and for peace to prevail"). The priest declared the Mass was ended and turned to the congregation. "May I present Mr. and Mrs. Branson!"

The ten people in the chapel applauded- and cheered and whistled, in Erich's case- with the enthusiasm of a hundred. At her new name, Sybil reflexively looked at her mother-in-law, who winked at her as her own hands clapped with fervor. The only person who was not excited was Tom, who drew her attention back to him. "You're supposed to look at _me_, love," he teased. "That's our cue to kiss!"

So they did.

Out of the shadows, in front of everyone and God's altar, in a covenant blessed by Him. Secrecy had its place, but these declarations of intentions, of consent, of promises eternal, were made in public for a reason. _Look at them _it commanded the witnesses, see the truth and depth of their commitment. See their love. See that their love is loved by God; it is sacred. He wants this union to succeed and He calls every person present to its aid.

To be sure, the battle lines between England and Ireland were still drawn, the divide between families- and inside families- still ran deep. Outside, the storm still raged. The odds that a couple from opposite sides would survive were still extremely low, even before the Bransons' troubled family history and the Crawleys' considerable means. Father Fahey knew this. Mor Branson knew this. Mary and Edith knew this. But from this day forward, they met reality with a new humility and skepticism with a new spirit- this was their fight now too.

Would Robert Crawley have changed if he had come to the wedding? Who can know. But the people in that small chapel in north Dublin that stormy afternoon _were_ changed by what they saw. He was not the chauffeur and she was not a Lady anymore- Tom was Sybil's husband and Sybil was Tom's wife, _is now and ever shall be, _the end.

The beginning.


	88. Chapter 88: The Reception

_thanks so much- so happy you liked it!  
><em>

_A/N- see Chpt 54 for the backstory on Liam's colleague John. The wedding registration is historically accurate.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Erich, smartly and wonderfully, had slipped out before the recessional and when Tom and Sybil came through behind the priest, he promptly steered them to the Bride's Room. "In the Jewish tradition, the newly married couple immediately retires for a few minutes of <em>uninterruption<em>," he explained. "I'll watch the door. Mazel Tov!"

They were at the height of their happiness- their lives' crescendo thus far- and for the first minute alone as husband and wife, they could only clutch at each other _w__e did it, we did it, _as incredulous and irrepressible as that fateful time on the lawn when they had first taken their destiny in hand. "Congratulations," Sybil said softly.

"You too," Tom whispered as he kissed her. _You can tell your parents you want to marry me and then you can do it. _She had done. He pulled back. "Mrs. Branson."

_Mrs. Branson_. "So much has happened," she breathed. Her mother-in-law's tears. Liam's offer. Her own mother's letter. "I feel as if I haven't seen you all day!"

"We haven't seen each other all day," Tom reminded her with a chuckle, "so this is rather nice, a few minutes to ourselves." Not that he wanted to waste them on family catch-up. This was their only wedding day, his one chance to see her in this ethereal dress, kiss her with the rough tulle of her veil under his hands.

"Yes," Sybil murmured. "We can talk tonight."

Tom inclined his head playfully. "We can talk _tomorrow._"

* * *

><p>They were married in the eyes of the Lord, but Tom and Sybil would not be married in the eyes of the law until they, the priest and two witnesses signed the marriage certificate and registered it with the Irish authorities- who were still the Crown authorities, at least for now.<p>

But what was, for most couples, a quick _pro forma_ act proved to be a blunt initiation into what they would face as a mixed marriage in a country in revolt, the outcome of which was yet to be determined.

They sat across from Father Fahey in his office, as they had twice before. The priest pushed the partially-completed official document across the desk for their review:

**19**_**19**_** Marriage Solemnized at the Roman Catholic Chapel of **_**St. Michael's**_** in the Registrar's District of **_**Dublin**_** in**** the County**** of **_**Dublin**_**.**

**NAME: **_**Thomas Michael Branson | **_**AGE & ****CONDITION: _27 / _**_**Bachelor**_

**NAME: ****_Sybil Penelope Crawley | _ ****AGE & ****CONDITION: _21_ / **_**Spinster**_

Sybil started- "I'm a spinster?"- but Father Fahey assured her the term was correct. _Not a widow or a divorcee, but a woman who's never married- a spinster_. She frowned_. _Bachelors were fancy-free men, adventurers with loads of women; spinsters were unfortunates who had missed the boat. _What would Rebecca Halloran say about_ _this_? But there were worse affronts, which Sybil discovered as she read on:

**GROOM'S OCCUPATION: ****_Journalist | _RESIDENCE: **_**51 Merrit Sq. Dublin**_

**BRIDE'S OCCUPATION: _None | _RESIDENCE: **

_None?! _Sybil was about to slap down the presumption, but Tom spoke before she could. A deep crease had appeared on his forehead and his concern silenced her. "You don't think it wise to put Yorkshire," he deduced.

"No," the priest confirmed. "This form will follow you your whole lives. We need to think carefully about what's disclosed and who will have access to it, now and in the future." _A r__evolutionary army- or more than one. Rebels divided when power was in play, they always had and they always would. _ Not that he could state that to the young republican couple. "Under the circumstances-"

"- we don't want to put any information that could be used against us," Tom finished.

Father Fahey folded his hands. "The situation is volatile."

Tom sat back and exhaled heavily; he couldn't have cared less about the priest's spiritual counsel, but he appreciated his insight on this. "I wasn't here in '16, but I've heard the stories." _Martial law. _ _Checkpoints._ _Interrogations._ _ Ten kinds of documentation needed to board a tram. _

"Back then it was only British soldiers," the priest reminded them. "The Irish Republican Army- if Dublin falls- may see Sybil's personal details differently."

_If Dublin falls_- what was this, the Trojan War? It sounded overly dramatic to Sybil. She was also annoyed that Tom and the priest had started to talk past her.

_If Dublin falls _also irked Tom, but for other reasons-_ if it's reclaimed, you mean. _He wondered if the Church was aware of how much it undercut the Irish cause when it cast the situation through the British lens of protection from chaos. But he held his tongue- Sybil's safety had to come first. "What do you recommend, Father?"

Father Fahey advised that Sybil should list Tom's mother's address as her own- "it was your residence for a few weeks, you can always say you didn't understand the question"- but he had no idea how to handle what was next:

**GROOM'S FATHER: ****Michael Branson | FATHER'S OCCUPATION: **

**BRIDE'S FATHER: ****Robert Crawley**** | FATHER'S OCCUPATION:**

Father Fahey was sympathetic to the _i__dea_ of independence, he envisioned its reality as a coup d'etat by angry young men who carried grudges and military-grade weapons. _L__ike those murderers in Petrograd they admire so much._ Any tip off to her father's position could put Sybil in serious danger- aside from revenge, a British Lord's daughter could be a powerful pawn to bargain with. However, it could be equally bad- for her _and_ Tom- if they were discovered to have deliberately hid her status; the Irish had a bad history with informers.

Father Fahey asked Sybil if her father had any _noncontroversial _occupation she could claim. "To be clear, if you're ever detained, you should be honest about who you are- it will be easy for them to find out. This is just so you aren't hassled at every routine stop."

"If it comes to that," Tom added hastily.

Sybil needed no reassurance. "My mother's fortune is in dry goods- it's the liquidity for the estate." Neither Tom nor Father Fahey had ever heard _liquidity _invoked in conversation and Tom had the rather surreal realization that this gargantuan wealth was now somewhat attached to him. "I suppose my father could be considered an investor."

"An investor in an _American_ business," Tom improved. "Sybil's mother is truly American, born and reared." The priest cocked a brow. _This could work. _"Even the lowest foot soldier knows how important America is to Sinn Fein and Ireland," Tom continued, now convinced, _especially with President de Valera over there on a courtship mission._

And that's how the Earl of Grantham became, on paper, Robert Crawley _Investor in an American family business _after which there was a brief but mortifying discussion about how to characterize Tom's father_._

Tom and Sybil had asked Liam and Mary to witness for them, but _under the circumstances _Sybil's oldest sister was nixed for second native Dubliner. "You can't be sentimental," Father Fahey impressed upon Sybil when Tom went to fetch his brothers. Couldn't she see what was ahead? _Lady Mary Crawley can't vouch for you. _

The priest clammed up on the subject when the Branson brothers entered. Liam Branson worked for Sinn Fein, he knew, but he couldn't help remark on the recent headlines in the British newspapers: the Huns were offloading war weapons at cut-rate prices to the IRA.

Liam flashed an insincere smile. "Don't believe everything you read Father," he advised as he scrawled his name with flourish _God knows what kind of orders they put their name on. _As Frank stepped up, Liam informed the priest that as of next month, Sinn Fein would have its own newspaper. "I'll have a copy sent over. Who knows- maybe Tom's story will be on A1."

"Is that so?" The priest looked hard at Tom.

"We want him, but he costs too much," Liam said. "He's a star over at the _Daily_."

"I wouldn't say that," Tom deflected as he accepted the pen- _Thomas Branson- _and passed it to Sybil. "Your turn, love."

The nib touched paper and Sybil snapped back. "Should I write my old name or my new one?" _Your birth name_, the priest said, thankful for one routine, ordinary question which he could answer. Grinning, she resumed. "For the last time..."_ Sybil Crawley_.

* * *

><p>In the deserted hall of St. Michael's, Tom stared at the document that would follow them the rest of their lives . "What is it?" Sybil asked.<p>

"It's just-" He shook his head. "We're a pair, aren't we? Your mother's family enterprise funds your father's family's estate. And then my old man..._._" _Indigent. _He couldn't even speak it; he'd had to look away when the priest wrote it in. Her choice, in print. Any sane person would say she was mad. Any reasonable person would see the same colossal mistake His Lordship did.

Sybil looked down at the paper in his hands. _A spinster with no occupation. _"I don't think there's one true thing about us on this piece of paper." She laid her palms on his chest, started to unbutton his suit coat. "Not one."

"We're in church," he reminded her.

"I know where we are." She took the license from him and tucked it into his inside pocket. "And I know what I am and what you are. What we are_," _she impressed, her eyes to his, until she was sure he believed it. "To hell with that."

"To hell with that." He held out his hand to her. "Let's have a party."

* * *

><p>The new Mr. and Mrs. Branson entered their reception in the back room of the pub down the street from St. Michael's like royalty, an irony which was not lost on Mary. The men queued up with <em>well dones<em> and handshakes for Tom, while Sybil was showered with kisses and compliments. "Oh Sybil, it was perfect! I cried through the whole vows!" Clare exclaimed with a hug. Even her sisters were excited for her and that the wedding had gone so well.

For the first half-hour, neither of them could stop smiling and the rather ominous conversation with the priest was forgotten. But their reality, like water, found ways to run and rush in.

Starting with the seating.

Dinner was served at one long table with the newlyweds at the head, the Bransons on Tom's right, the Crawleys on Sybil's left with Anna, Clare, and Erich as buffers between them. Anna had tried to duck out of the reception- _Mr. Carson wouldn't approve _of her eating with the ladies or the former chauffeur- and honestly, she wanted to be able to deny when pressed downstairs for the sordid details of Lady Sybil's runaway affair. But Lady Mary had insisted she stay. Fortunately, Sybil's Irish friend Clare was a talker and spared Anna the awkwardness of striking up dinner conversation with her employers.

Which left Lady Edith and Lady Mary to talk to each other when Sybil turned her attention to Tom or the other guests. They finally had an experience to bond over: their first pub meal, which consisted of watery, breaded white fish, overcooked potatoes and shapeless chartreuse mash. "What do you suppose this is?" Edith asked, poking it.

"Peas?" Mary guessed. "In another life."

Edith made a face and set down her fork. "How's the wine?"

"Undrinkable," Mary declared before she took a long, deliberate drink of the pub's "finest" house white, which made them both crack up.

* * *

><p>There were a few modest presents for the new flat and a personal one for Sybil: a slender black leather-band wristwatch. "Every working woman needs one," Edith mimicked Cousin Isobel's chipper, efficient tone. The card inside read: <em>The time is now. Affectionately, Isobel<em>. It was the perfect remedy to _**O**__**ccupation: none**_. "Do you think I could put it on now?" Sybil asked when it was already half fastened. _Darling, I'm not sure it goes with a white gown_ Mary was about to say, but Sybil made up her mind first. "Oh hell, it's _my_ wedding- I can wear what I want."

She stretched out her arm, tickled by the very evident symbol that she was a woman on the move with places to be and tasks to accomplish. Everyone would see it and know this about her. When she walked into the Women's Worker Union office on Monday, when she arrived at a hospital for an interview, they would know it. It was cheap confidence, but she would wear it and endeavor to become what it embodied, a wife with talent and skill, who contributed to society and the household finances. _The time_ is_ now_.

* * *

><p>Fortunately for the Crawley women (of whom there were now present only two), the wedding cake- "Carraway," Edith relayed to her sister with an arched brow, "for fertility"- was absolutely delicious. It had been carefully carried in by Fitz the driver (whom Sybil insisted take away a slice), and was cut with a jointly-held knife by the newlyweds, who fed each other the ceremonial first taste. Tom kissed the cream off Sybil's lips to many hoots and hollers, then licked his thumb to Mary and Edith's mutual horror.<p>

The proprietor brought back a complimentary jug of mead, traditional at Irish weddings- "honeyed wine for a successful honeymoon"- which Sybil thought nothing of until she tried to serve some to Maeve. "No thank you, I've quite enough success already!"

Her sister-in-law punctuated it with a pat to her abdomen, though it took Sybil a dull minute to comprehend because Maeve already had six, the most recent of whom was still in the cot. "You're pregnant_ again_?"

It was blunt, but Maeve Branson was not the sort to be embarrassed and certainly not by the naivete of a brand-new bride. "Drink up," she laughed. "You'll be over here with me soon enough!"

Sybil smiled weakly and when she raised her glass, she swore she heard her new watch tick.

* * *

><p>Liam had hired a street fiddler to play after dinner. The unused tables were pushed against the wall to make room for dancing, which mostly consisted of Erich sweeping Aileen Branson in her blue-sashed Communion dress around the floor. Tom danced with his new wife, Clare, Edith- "not for the first time," she joked recalling the Servants' Ball- and even once with Anna. Tom and Anna were more familiar with each other, but they had never had an occasion to dance; Anna was much tinier than Sybil which he realized discomfited him- he felt too big. Despite her size, there was a heaviness to her person, the hollows around her eyes. But still, even with Mr. Bates' incarceration, she persevered as the Anna everyone knew and liked. "It was a lovely service. Lady Sybil is a picture of a bride."<p>

"Thank you. For being here today and for-" He had a flash of the downstairs table- the stunned headlines, _Slainte O'Brien!, _Anna urging him to bed and his sloppy _Tell her I love her. I _love _her. _"Well, for all the other times you were there, in our lovesick days. I appreciate it and so does Sybil."

"Love won out."

"Aye. It does," Tom said _and i__t will._ "So I'd like to think."

When he smiled, his eyes crinkled in the corners like- "Me as well. I'm glad it's won here," Anna said sincerely _even if Mr. Carson doesn't approve.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Tom was on his way to settle up with the pub owner when he was stopped in his path by Lady Mary.<p>

"Tom."

_Tom _not Branson. It was still a command, but that was just her. His sister-in-law. He and Mary had stood opposite each other more than once- in front the yard after the count, at the inn- respectable adversaries like Olympic athletes, and now they were related. He didn't know quite how to approach her, but since she had called out to him, he decided to follow her lead.

She transferred to him, with the deft of an an illusionist, an envelope stuffed with pound notes _for the reception; _it was in his hands before he'd even noticed it was in hers. He opened his mouth to decline, but her smile warned him off- _women like me don't carry money_. It never happened, it meant.

Its thickness told him it was too much. _We're buying some dinners, not the building_. But his sister-in-law was ahead of him on that too. "There's a hotel in Greystones. Edith and your brother picked it out. You're expected." The car outside would take them, and would drive them back on Monday. "It's taken care of."

_Greystones? _The pub tab was one thing, the honeymoon was another. They had a plan- this was the Crawleys interfering because that plan was not good enough for them. Tom looked down at the envelope, aware it was not only a present- it was also a precedent. "Sybil loves the seaside, you know."

_Yes, I _do_ know_. "Thank you, but as _you _know we planned to spend our first night in our flat so we haven't anything packed."

"It's taken care of." That phrase again. "Your brother had your mother put together some clothes for you. It's in the car. Enjoy yourselves, we've taken care of everything." The words were still in the air as she walked away.

_It's taken care of._ He realized why it bothered him. A phrase, ostensibly meant to free one from material concerns, was completely out of context in North Dublin because _who had the power to do that_? Power. _It's taken care of. _In other words, _it's out of your hands_.

But he paid the pub owner from the fat wad of cash, put the remainder in the pocket with their marriage registration and returned to Sybil. "I've a surprise for you," he said, leaning into the trace of her neck. Location aside, he was very much ready to be alone with her and his low, intense voice conveyed that. "What would you think of a honeymoon down the coast?"

Sybil turned to him and nearly squealed with delight- "Really?"- before she kissed him in a way that promised he would be well-rewarded for this plan she did not yet know was not his. "I didn't want to say, but I so wished we could have a honeymoon away, if only for the night."

"What?" surprised. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I know, I should have." She was looking at him with so much love in her eyes he could barely stand it. "But see? I didn't have to_._"

"Our siblings had something to do with it," he admitted.

"Then I thank all of you," Sybil said with a happy sigh.

She embraced him and he held her- held her and kept to himself that there were only two pounds left from his last paycheck after expenses and six days until next Friday, that he would never have squandered his mother's hard-earned money on an overpriced resort-town hotel, and he was only the heroic husband now because her family _took care of it_.

* * *

><p>"So you're conspiring with the English aristocracy now?" Tom handed his confused brother a whiskey and clarified, "<em>Greystones<em>."

"I'm hardly the first Branson to put love before politics," Liam chuckled. "Don't worry. It's not too froufrou."

Tom shook his head- that's not what worried him. "I've been a husband for less than a day and I've already been overruled by the Crawleys for not being good enough."

_Bloody Christ, Tom- you could just say thank you. _Liam could only tolerate so much sturm and drang about the "problem" of Sybil's wealth. "She's their _daughter_," he said, "and baby of the family, so you'd better get used to it. As for the greasing- spend it on Sybil's union dues or the political prisoners' fund or to buy shares in Eireann. Or hell, buy a bottle of absinthe off Clare and get wicked with each other, I don't know- but don't _worry_ about it_._"

Tom's mouth tightened. Was he being unreasonable- should he blow Lord Grantham's endowment on a new, dandy wardrobe and weekends away, maybe a car of his own? He could never. Just the thought of Mary reporting back to the big, grand house _He intended them to honeymoon in a _flat, _can you imagine! _He could hear Mr. Carson fulminating over it to Mrs. Hughes. Thank God the Crawleys swooped in and saved Sybil from Branson_. She never should have married him, you know. _And Mrs. Hughes' standard, anemic _Let's wait and see. _He thought it romantic when they planned it (and _they _had planned it, although she wasn't as on board as she seemed)- what place could be more special than their first home together? There was nowhere on earth they could journey farther to reach. But he'd accepted their view of it when he accepted that envelope.

"Think of it this way," Liam continued. "The Crawleys _are_ the British. You can't fight them with force, so you have to be strategic. Undermine their effort to rule over you."

Tom couldn't help but laugh. "Be the Shinner, you mean?"

"Exactly," Liam grinned. "And trust that Sybil knew what she was signing up for and it wasn't just a protest vote and she'll stand by her choice."

"Like the Irish people, eh?"

"So we hope. So we hope," Liam said, swirling his drink. "You know Tom, not to belabor the metaphor, but I think it fits: remember what it's _for_. It's not about beating the British, it's about the dream of Ireland." Wise words from John in his office, a veteran of 1916 who still had a British bullet lodged in his right arm. "Know which master you serve." He nodded at Sybil, chatting with Edith. "It's the dream, brother." He tipped his tumbler to Tom's. "You're the envy of men tonight. Even us monks."

"I am," Tom concurred humbly, "all credit to my wife."

* * *

><p>Clare had avoided Liam until now, but when she saw him sneak outside for some air, she followed. He was under the tarpaulin smoking a cigarette, which he promptly snuffed out when he saw her. The rain had turned colder and she wrapped her arms around herself. "Margaret couldn't come?"<p>

"Margaret who?"

He did not sound defensive, nor when she elaborated, "The reddish haired girl from your neighborhod." _The little striver from the tram stop who had all but shouted she was with you_. "What's she to do with Tom and Sybil?"

"Not for them- for _you._"

"Alright," Liam half-smiled and dipped his head in that way that he did. "What's she to do with _me_ then?"

He was mystified, honest-to-God.

_Oh God..._

Liam realized her mistake as she did, with the opposite reaction. He started to laugh as he pointed to his purplish black eye. "Was this for Margaret McLean?"

"Oh God! What have I done?" Clare buried her face in her hands _like they do in the pictures_ which only amused Liam more. But when she showed herself, her eyes were red and swollen. "Did you really mean what you said? You- you love me?"

"Course ." He dared to touch her cheek. "What other reason would I have to say it?"

Liam expected that to be the cinematic denouement and Clare would throw herself into his embrace _like they do in the pictures,_ but she did not. Her arms recrossed like armor over her heart. "You need to be loved. You crave it like tobacco and we know what you do with that." She flicked her head toward the stamped-out cigarette butt, crushed and sodden near the curb. That indictment hit him harder and hurt so much more than her fist.

His smile fell.

"It was hard for me to believe your feeling," Clare said quietly, "and easy for me to believe the other thing."

Liam knew why- and he didn't try to equivocate with soldiers or Spaniards. Clare was telling him what she needed- perhaps not marriage, but a lot closer to Sybil and Tom than whatever they had been. "I did mean it," he told her. "Even when you didn't respond, I wasn't sorry I'd said it. I want you to know how I feel about you."

The day was over, dusk had fallen. The rain still held. Tom and Sybil were in the yellow-lit window, dancing and laughing. "I don't want to be like my father."

"Then don't be."

Her pale green eyes challenged him. _Green for Ireland _and something clicked for Liam, he heard his own voice pontificating about the need for Ireland to show its true character, to rise above the degradation of the past. "Will you help me?"

Clare nodded. "Yes."

* * *

><p>"Syb-" Tom nudged her- "Look."<p>

Clare had Aileen on her knee chatting with Anna, while Liam faced away from her talking to Erich. But below their seats, their hands were clasped. She hadn't said a word to Clare. "Love is in the air," Sybil mused.

_Seems so, _he said but their kiss was interrupted by Edith. "Sorry Tom, but we need to borrow your bride!" She pulled Sybil up and towards the door where Mary was waiting with a black umbrella in each hand to execute the plan.

* * *

><p>There was only one person for whom Carson would dare interrupt dinner. "Pardon me, my Lord, but Lady Mary is on the telephone from Dublin."<p>

Cora's stomach dropped _had something gone wrong _while Robert's fluttered _perhaps the wedding was called off? _He nodded at Cora, already up from her chair. As she darted out, Robert raised a brow at Carson who raised his chin in return. Dare they hope-?

The stationer didn't know what to make of the three women who dashed with their umbrellas into his shop at ten minutes to close. Two of them were in fine, beaded dresses with elaborate updos, the third was in a bridal dress and rubber boots, a cap veil over her cropped hair. He wondered what their story was, how they were acquainted. He was in for a shock- the tall one, who had paid to call Yorkshire, handed the receiver to the bride, whose voice was just as tony. "Mama? Mama, it's me," she announced with a smile at her sisters. "I called to tell you I'm married, Mama. I really and truly am."


	89. Chapter 89: En Route To

_thanks as always! A/N in comments.  
><em>

* * *

><p>The longest day of the year had ended, the sun had set and the car raced through the dark and the stars. Greystones was twenty miles south of Dublin, down the coast in another universe, one of sea air and stately homes. This was where the other half lived, the well-off Catholic merchants and Protestant ministers. They were the people who had returned the status quo to power year after year in Ireland, and it was not hard to see why.<p>

Sybil had her head tilted toward the window, to catch the waves when the road rose up. Every so often, the moon would illuminate the side of her face, blanch her hair an otherworldly white against the earthly hue of her veil, still prettily poised on the back of her head. He was moved to kiss her and did, just above her ear. _I love you _he spoke in a lovers' braille, his lips brushed the swell of her cheek as she smiled with satisfaction. He doubted Fitz the driver understood Irish. _ "Tá grá agam duit._"

She turned, sly. "_Tá mo chroí istigh ionat..._?"

Their code phrase, from the lonely inn up north_. My heart is in you_ didn't quite translate from her, but he knew what she meant. "It will be." Grinning, she returned her attention outside and Tom Branson reflected on his life.

He had apprenticed in a place like this- not at an estate, but a mansion outside Dublin where, more than motors, he had been trained in _self-improvement _by the Irish matron. _Enunciate,_ she had pressed, to round out his flat, rapid-fire mumbles into the _more pleasing __English _which he still spoke. _We don't talk like that here _she had scolded when he described an overpayment (five pounds for a three pound repair) as _too Irish_, and he wondered which word she objected to? But he had taken her heed: _manners cost nil but buy much _which had proven in his life to be true.

Of course, his cousins and old mates and even Kathleen had accused him of airs. _Tom doesn't want to drink with us lot anymore, _she'd said with a wave of her hand at Aileen's parents' table when he'd come home for a weekend visit, _his new job has him all cocked up. _Kathleen could sense his heart had already started to wander and she wanted to wound him. _He thinks he's better than all this _she declared coldly after her first blow failed. _Yes, _he scowled silently. _ I do. _

"The Missus" was a nice lady and a stickler for appearance, punctuality, and diction. She was the reason Tom was able to catapult to the position of a Lord's chauffeur; indeed, Lord Grantham was surprised to learn Tom had never worked with a large staff, but by then Tom already had the job.

And then Sybil.

Sybil, his finest ambition, who held all his other ambitions like a tree holds its branches and leaves. Just her name sparked restlessness in his limbs, set fire to his blood _I will make something of myself, I promise_. He chuckled to himself. Did he have an inborn need to prove himself to women above him? No, Sybil was a shape-shifter too and they understood each other. Earlier, they had been offered best wishes from the driver- an Irishman who did bow and scrape, who had never been taught to enunciate and would be a chauffeur for life- which she had received as if it were frankincense and myrrh. The old man was not often treated as a person rather than a _person beneath _and Tom saw its immediate and transformative power, the almost-shy humility of possibility _I don't suppose..._

Sybil had ennobled him once too and now she was his wife.

Because of his adopted airs, because he hadn't caved to social pressure and stayed the course to better himself. Because he had refused to be defined by boundary lines- _that's a stupid way to think_, he snapped at Kathleen when they were alone. _I'm not an accent or an address or a position. I am _myself._ It's impossible for me to be other. Descartes would have said _that_ if it weren't so damn obvious. _

_I'm sorry. _Kathleen was not the sort to be sorry; she was only sorry he was cross with her. _I didn't mean-_

_What you said is exactly what you meant, _he fumed before he reminded her of the old English canard that when relief food arrived in the Famine, the Irish refused it: _w__e can't eat that- we're starving! _

Tom hadn't thought about that in forever. Why had it come back to him now, and so clearly too?

* * *

><p>Colored lanterns told of their arrival in a holiday town, as the road narrowed and sloped down to a low stone wall that exposed the sea. The rain fell still and the red, yellow, and pink light blurred and swung in front of the blue luminance of the sky and the bay.<p>

The hotel came into view: white brick with black shutters and black iron balconies. It made him think of Anna's uniform in reverse and welcomed them with similar cheer. The Greystones Inn was the name Tom had told the driver, but now he saw it was The Inn _at_ Greystones. No Catholic schoolteacher would have ever let pass that kind of arch construction, he chuckled, and none of his editors would either, not that anyone here subscribed to the _Daily_.

A carousel and cotton candy stand awaited tomorrow's tiny revelers and it struck Tom that this was the life that awaited his children, with a mother raised on the virtues of summers abroad and sun protection. Someday, he would be the father who lifted a little lady in a straw hat onto a wooden horse and waved as she went round and round to a merry, old-time tune.

How would he ever explain his story to her?

That a mere twenty miles away, children lived with the harshest odds, in stench and disease, a dozen people crammed into each room, the product of six-hundred years of systematic racial and economic subjugation of _our people_. But she wouldn't know any children who were like he had been as a boy and life was just fine here at the seashore...

Tom had no personal attachment to his story- Sybil hadn't even learned he was from Dublin until she was about to join the VAD- nor did he see any virtue in it. Yes, he had been born impoverished, but as he told Sybil the first time she asked about his father, there were many whose circumstances were as bad or worse. Yes, he worked hard, but so did his mother and Moira and all the chambermaids and washerwomen who, because of below-market wages and discrimination, could not move up to a more stable financial situation as he had.

How could he explain that some quaint Irish towns sheltered the Judas class of well-to-do Irish Catholics, the Castle bureaucrats and tenement owners and factory shareholders, with their silver and the pro-Crown_ Irish Times_? Gentility built on the bones and blood of their countrymen. Oh sure, they voted for Parnell and Home Rule and even Sinn Fein in this last election- but that was a wrist slap for Britian's bad behavior under martial law and its subsequent attempt to conscript their sons before the bodies in Dublin had been cleared away. Britian was a chastised beau, but the rebels were cockroaches_, _pests to a system that paid them handsomely. There was another joke that Britain could have saved itself a lot of trouble if it had let the native population handle the '16 bunch.

_... but the little lady in the straw hat_.

She was still there, an impression by Sargent or Degas, the expression on her pale face unfinished. What lesson, what wisdom did he intend to impart? _ So you can still ride the carousel _but remember that the British occupiers- not _your_ Grandfather per se, but_ those like him_- tried to eradicate _those like us_ for centuries and there were always Irish traitors to help them. _Don't be fooled by manners_ because nuns can be coarse and murderers can be chivalrous and because manners make the poor, with their dirty nails and clothes, offensive. But you must have manners because there won't be any chance for you without them. So... be aware, I suppose... _yes, you may have a penny for the arcade_.

Tom Branson had never felt possessive about his origin until he envisioned his own children so far removed from it. He wanted them to have a better life, the best life- but without the blindness and amnesia that too often accompanied material comfort. How could he explain this story- _their_ story, Ireland's story- so they would understand and more, so they would _care_?

The car rolled up the driveway .

The question would wait for another day.

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire<strong>

Robert did not sleep.

Cora was curled up contentedly, the smile from Sybil's telephone call still on her face. She had come back to the dinner table with no details (her smile said it all), eaten and chatted about the London renovations with relish and later made love to him the same. Now, he was the only one awake in the blackness.

His mind rarely ventured into the untoward- even as an schoolboy, he'd had a distaste for bawdy books, bordellos and _what men could do_. Of course, humanity spanned the spectrum- by why the fascination on_ that_ end, rather than St. Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Navy or _Paradise Lost_. Also _what men could do_. But he could not redirect his mind tonight.

The deed was done and being done. The chauffeur had won.

He should have made her accept Grey after her first season, but _no, no- _he boasted to Merton his Sybil was _very independent of mind_ and a romantic as well. She was only seventeen and_ our baby, _he told Larry's father. She wasn't ready to be a wife and when she is,_ it'll be to a man she chooses. _

Robert had refused to even put the proposal to her- at no small personal cost, as Merton was his best friend- and Sybil had spit in the eye of his consideration to debase herself with his driver.

_That damn chauffeur_.

If he had such belief in his own kind, why didn't he marry one of them? He wanted someone who was educated, who could converse on culture and books. He wanted cleanliness and beauty- shiny hair and smooth skin. The glow and vigor of health. A body molded by whalebone, strict posture and diet. A woman who was only for him. _A well-bred woman_.

In short, an aristocrat.

Oh, but surely Branson would be as infatuated if he'd met Sybil in a workhouse- a Sybil who stank of iron and sweat, with rotted teeth and scabs from some pox or another? Robert snorted. The chauffeur clearly preferred to love his lower classes from a distance, as he buried himself in the best the Empire had to offer.

Robert did _not _want that picture in his mind, but it incensed him that his wife, Mary and Edith could not see what a fraud Sybil's husband was.

His disproven initial conjecture- that Branson only intended to seduce and discard Sybil- was at least consistent; defilement as the revolutionary's weapon of choice. Instead, he truly meant to _become one _with her- a product of the very system he claimed to loathe.

Robert wished he had been a better father.

That he had invited her on a Sunday hike- and invited her again after she declined. She'd had no time for him for years now, but he had never made it seem very important to him.

That he had taken more interest in the convalescent home, _she always lit up when she talked about that_.

That he had asked her about her opinions- about her workplace and the War, even about the women's platform and her politics.

He had believed that to even entertain childish, liberal notions would be to affirm them somewhat. Modern society was rife with contradictions and confusion- a father should be a voice of certainty and authority. Where would she turn if he abdicated to relativism? When she was scared, she would count on him to _know_.

Parents wanted to give their children everything and that included peace of mind. It wasn't healthy for Sybil to be so focused on the macabre: War's death and destruction, social and political unrest. And not just because of her sex. He would have spared Matthew if he could- but men had their tasks, as women had theirs. He had been in the twisted, brutal hell of battle- his wife and home had been his salvation- he killed for their peace. Was it chauvinism that made him want to insulate Sybil from such horror? _Next, they'll want to__ send daughters to the front lines so they can be slaughtered equally to sons, all in the name of progress. _

Robert never expected this. His little girls had adored him and grown daughters were not a father's purview- their husbands would handle their problems and funds; if they required assistance, their husbands would come to him. It was easier for men to discuss difficulties and money. A father could be on the level with a son-in-law because of their shared interest and because sons-in-law had respect for the trust their fathers-in-law had placed in them. _  
><em>

He probably shouldn't hold his breath for Branson's telephone call.


	90. Chapter 90: Tonight and Tomorrow

_alternative title: Emancipation._

_A/N in comments. as always, thanks so much!  
><em>

* * *

><p>One hundred days from tonight, the new moon swelling, the autumn leaves turning, and a chill in the air, Tom Branson would do that which he had not done much of on his honeymoon.<p>

Sleep.

The stairs would take longer than usual and Tom would be slightly woozy when he came into the flat. Sybil would come out of the kitchen and gasp, seeing the blood on his open palm, which had been holding the wound on his left side. _I'm alright, it's alright_, he would say, _I__ just need to sit a minute. _He would shrug off his coat before sensibly deciding that seat should be on the bathroom floor.

Sybil would drop to her knees, pull up his shirt- fast, but not frantic, never frantic, always _a calm and can-do manner_- and for the first time since found her sitting on her suitcase in York he would see that she_ can_ be fazed, but she will never succumb to it. He would try to stay her rattled wrists- _look at me, __it's just a cut-_ but she would shake him off.

_Be still, _she would order, as much to her own mind and all its worst-case scenarios, as she applied a proper compress and tried to steady her voice. _What happened_. A journalist, he would recount it as he experienced it- a disjointed tale of an interrupted supper, a pack of Tans, a body, _he had a bomb, _the witnesses' shrieked protestations, _everyone line up_ they shouted _why so you can shoot us too_, a skirmish and-

And only then, in the pressed, incensed line of his wife's mouth as she removed his shirt would he remember that Nurse Branson hates bad patients and he's not said one word yet to convince her she's not about to find a bullet in him. _A tramp broke a bottle, stabbed for one of them, and missed. __I'm alright, it's just a cut._

_You don't know that, _her severe tone the inverse of her fingers as she eased him off the wall and started to touch him all over, everywhere- _you could be in shock _she would explain- conducting a tactile confirmation between his ribs, the bends of his arms, his navel which tickles then makes him shiver, the pain in his side overpowered by the throb of his heart and an intense desire to kiss her. Every day in Dublin, every story he works he thinks about her, about them, the future they dream of and fight for. He would feel their mutual sacrifice keenly as she attended to him, as she had (and he too) on their honeymoon, the discovery days of undivided attention, as she (and he too) seldom can now, working long hours on opposite schedules. He wouldn't be able to help himself when she leaned in to feel around his head. _I know that I'm in love. __  
><em>

_Oh for God's sake_, _Tom _she would mutter but she would smile because _he's alright, thank God he's alright_. Almost. She'd dart up and back to the cabinets for supplies- cotton, iodine, who knows what else- stricken and quick like those ubiquitous brown bunnies that populate the estate. _The pain's not so bad_, but the medical paraphernalia would make him queasy. He'd redirect his attention to a splotch of crimson on his trousers- _s__hyte- _one of his better suits.

_My coat_.

The notebook, in his coat pocket, on the chair in the kitchen. _Check and make sure it's there_.

_Not now I can't_!

_Yes, now. Go. _She would and it was. The story in his notebook could land (at least) two of those soldiers in prison for life if there were any justice in this country, which there wasn't. He would write it anyway, soon as he took care of this cut.

_It's not that deep_, she would diagnose and with more remote fear for their city, _I'm not convinced all this is your blood_. _But you need a doctor_.

_No, no. _He has never been to a doctor, he would say, other than that one English-imposed physical to determine if he were fit enough to be killed, nor a hospital which here (he would not say) are lousy with RIC men and spies and he doesn't intend to start now. _I work at a hospital and I'm telling you, __you need stitches_.

His Sybil was laid-back as far as wives went- but not about health and not about him. That he would receive professional medical treatment was non-negotiable. Fine then, he said. _You do it_.

At first, she would not believe he was serious. And then _I can't,_ _I've never, _she doesn't- but he doesn't trust anyone more than her. _I bet you can.  
><em>

Quicker than he would have expected, she concedes- less because of his stubbornness, more because_ it's a clean cut, not too deep_, and her First Aid kit contains an eyeless needle. If this were a battlefield, she'd have to overcome her fears and do it; they are in a war, so she will. He would wait on the floor- _her first patient, _he would think with a smile- while she sterilized the needle in a saucepan and poured him a drink to dull the pain.

_Look up_, she would advise, with a tender tilt of his chin. _You won't want to watch_.

But he would.

He would watch her display her dual talent as his wife and his doctor- bottom lip in her teeth, in a discount department-store sweater wearing at one elbow, hair pulled back and a few beads of sweat on her brow as she sewed- _sutured_- his wound. It would not be a fast job, but it would be a precise one, exactly as she's observed in the hospital O.R.- _the bottle might scar him, but shoddy work won't. _Tom would know the operation was a success before she even set down the needle when he watched her sometimes-cloudy eyes clear with professional esteem- not for some man she's held the bowl for, but for_ herself_.

He had never been more attracted to her.

A nurse, she'd make sure all the blood was cleared (doctors don't care about that) before she announced _y__ou can look now._ Ten even notches over six centimeters. The dark thread would jar him a bit_,_ but it would dissolve. _ Does it hurt much? _

_Nah._

_Liar, _she'd say with a lingering kiss to his forehead, in which he would feel her slight shaking, the uncoiling of her tensed shoulders, how scared she had been but would never say. He was never worried, he'd say. He never had one second's doubt. _No_, she'd think, _you never do_.

She would help him to bed and he would call her back. _Come here. _

_Lie back. Don't push on the stitches_.

_Come here, I want to tell you something_.

_You're worse than those randy officers, _she'd tease- but she would come back and sit beside him, careful not to upset his wound.

He would take her hand, look deep into her eyes like a proposal, which it would be. _I want to tell you that I don't care what it takes or how many jobs I have to work, we're sending you to medical college._

Like York, this would be met by Sybil with a stunned _but..., _this time, both spoken and unsaid. _But _it's not the money (Grandmama would pay, Mama would make her), it takes years to become a doctor and for her it will take even more. _But_ all that time her husband would have less a wife than a boarder. _But _she shouldn't have a chance at a university education before him, it's not fair when he was the first person to ever teach her anything. _B__ut there could be another reason already on the way...  
><em>

But unlike York, Tom would be prepared. _But you know what we say about hard sacrifices_.

She would recall his appeal to her- in his chauffeur's livery, with red-rimmed eyes- when he impressed his hand-print on her. She would do what she could not do then and reach for him- _do you know_, that first moment when he came in, when she saw only the blood, _my whole life ended_. She would love him forever for the selfless offer _b__ut becoming a doctor's__ not worth our marriage_.

_Oh my darling_, he'd remind her, _it _is_ our marriage._ _T__his is what it's for_.

* * *

><p><strong>The Inn at Greystones<strong>

They were whisked to the bridal suite, on the second floor with a veranda that faced the Irish Sea, which was decorated, Tom speculated, in the spirit of Queen Anne's lace: all _cream doile _but for the cherry four-poster bed and the silver ice bucket. Fusty decor aside, it was a fine room- finer than any Tom had ever slept in and any he'd ever taken Sybil to (certainly finer than the one where they'd first consummated their relationship)- a vision of Victorian seaside romance. It wasn't Tom's vision, but Sybil declared it _charming_ and _perfect_ which was all he cared about. The hotelier pointed them to its features: the view, fresh flowers and chilled wine, the drawn bath, the lit fire. The bed, they could see, was already turned down. "Your family asked that the room be ready when you arrived." With a proprietary smile, the hotelier hastened to the door Tom for a private word, which Tom assumed was protocol.

He was mistaken.

Sybil confirmed that when she demanded, "What was that about?"

Tom didn't want to upset her- it was their honeymoon- but he couldn't think of a convenient fib. The truth it was then. "Uh- the price of the sheets. He wanted me to know it was included." He indicated the wicker basket in the corner by the bed. "The extra set's in there."

It took a few seconds for Sybil to realize _why- _Tom had put down a towel in Liverpool- and the comprehension that _that, she _was the subject of the two men's conversation dropped over her like a shadow. "He might have said it to _me_."

"I'm sure he didn't want to embarrass you," Tom said, not to_ excuse_ but to explain-

"Why should I be embarrassed?" Sybil snapped. _"_Are _you_ embarrassed by a- a, I don't know, paper cut or scraped knee?" Her indignation had outpaced her ability to articulate it. "I'm not _embarrassed_. There is absolutely no reason why I should be."

Tom raised his hands- of course _he_ agreed- a peaceable and unequivocal response before he excused himself to freshen up. "You know someday," she mustered, "men won't talk like that about women."

* * *

><p>Tom needed the bath after the humid day and Sybil needed the space. She wasn't mad at him, he knew; like him, she had a temper. His sparked quick and (admittedly) often, petulant bursts that were short-lived and never packed much power, like Chinese firecrackers on the pavement on parade days. Sybil was slow to burn, but explosive. <em>Just ask her father<em>. But this was different- this was a raw nerve. She looked like he felt when someone uttered _dirty mick _behind his back- or to his face.

_Dehumanized_.

He wondered how often that happened and if there were occasions of which he was not aware. Obviously, he noticed the blatant ones- laws that disenfranchised women, slurs of all sorts. Come to think of it, there were far more female epithets than Irish ones. God knows it was no privilege to be an Irishman in the early 20th century, but even an Irishman was at least a man.

He didn't know how to make that better, but _she won't want to talk about it_. It wasn't her way. He'd follow her lead- they were married now and had to learn to handle each other's moods. Tom chuckled. _She'll probably have_ _defenestrated that basket_.

* * *

><p>Sybil unpacked her suitcase and changed. Tom was more traditional- and she a little more so- than those who knew them would suspect. She'd worn a white dress for their wedding, she would wear one tonight.<p>

What Mary had selected for her was not that far from what she'd chosen for herself, a testament to her sister's affinity to the ascendant fashion in Paris: feminine fabrics with masculine cuts, no childish bows or ruffles, just one clean line of off-white silk.

She spent some time brushing her hair. She liked it best when the bottom curled around her chin, which required both effort and a bit of beeswax nicked from Tom's valise, but achieved the aim of her reflection matching her conception of herself. Her face looked older- wiser- as did the rest of her, if that were possible, if a few weeks' experience could change a person's shape. She had found out firsthand _it's really nothing to be nervous about- _moving forward- and though she could be frustrated, even infuriated by what she encountered, she need not fear it. She knew what she could do. She could deliver- for her husband and for herself. There was no other time on this wild runaway journey when she'd looked in the mirror and been more sure of that than tonight. And she would be even surer tomorrow.

She needed to focus on that and not the stupid basket.

It was not for this hotel to presuppose her personal decision. But _it's not up to you_- the basket's mute commandment. Liverpool could not, should not, have happened. It wasn't her decision. _She, that_ was the sole purview of her husband- why the hotelier had spoken only to him.

It was not _only_ the basket either: Father Fahey talking past her, **_no occupation_**, Maeve's grating _soon enough _prediction. Such indignities were par for the course in her previous life- her own father had once bandied about her virtue in front of the butler!- but how could she have come so far and still, _still_- ?

At ten, she had protested the corset Granny had forced Mama to put her in. _It's too tight_, she implored her mother. _I__t hurts! _Mama said she would learn to live with it and only when Sybil threatened action with scissors did she shout. _ Every other woman does and so will you_!

At ten, she had lost. Yet here she was at twenty-one, in a brassiere, her corsets incinerated somewhere over Dublin. Victories came after fights- when viewed like that, hostilities were the necessary condition of triumphs.

Sybil dabbed perfume in clever places. She was not embarrassed by or for the person looking back at her, who would make love to her husband for the first time as a woman, not a novice. It would impossible, anyway, to ever look skittish with a rebel bob.

* * *

><p>Sybil smiled with satisfaction when her husband reappeared- parted and combed, with a fresh-shaven shine, she wasn't the only one who primped- in greige pajamas she'd never seen, clearly purchased for the occasion. He never seemed uncomfortable in his skin (what she found most attractive about him), but the new sleepwear was testing him: too narrow in the shoulders, too loose in the waist, <em>with buttons<em>. She preferred how he usually slept- naked or just about- but he wore them well, if restlessly.

"Your mother sent them." Her sisters' note said so, he clarified, which blunted her mortification at the prospect of her mother writing him personally about her _duteous development_.

Sybil rose from the vanity. "You don't have to wear them," she absolved him, which he only half-heard, riveted by the cling and sweep of the silk, its slight sound as she moved. Her dark features on white were dramatic, like one of Clare's _Photoplay _covers or the new Mondrian. They'd stared at the photo of his _Composition _for half an hour. Tom hadn't thought much of it then, but he saw its brilliance now in her, how the reduction to color and line revealed her essence, her real beauty. He chose the easier compliment. "You could be a film star."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Very." Tom went to kiss her which she evaded, her eyes levelled at his buttoned collar. Her family's Pygmalion attempt. "I wouldn't want anyone to think I can't clean up for you." It was half a joke, but only half.

Sybil lifted it off- "I don't care what 'anyone' thinks"- and let it drop behind him. His amusement spurred a return of her hands _while we're at it _to muss his hair, scatter it like pitched hay across his brow. He had no corset to chuck out, but this would suffice- no more _neat_, _clean_, _tidy_, _pure_, _appealing_ or _pleasing,_ all the adjectives designed to convince people- _some_ people- they were inherently _other_. Not on anyone else's terms, not anymore. _Oh, everyone does? Not us. _"There. More exciting."

"It is now?"

_Yes_, she affirmed and kissed him hard. _Yes_, walking back but never breaking from him- no part of her has even been or will ever be "broken" or "taken" or "lost" by their expression of love for each other. _Yes_, on the edge of the bed, the sheets unused, two fistfuls of white silk, the lights still on. _Yes _in no more but no less time than their vows at the altar, in the language he has taught her to speak, which was not yet Gaelige.

* * *

><p>Not quite the decorator's vision of romance, he thought as they took belated advantage of the turned-down bed. But it was real. <em>God damn<em>. He'd feel bad about the efficiency of that honeymoon, but for its efficacy. She fell back with an incredulous giggle and he carried her to the undisturbed side. "Across the threshold," he teased tucking her in, "if a bit out of sequence."

Tom turned off the lamps, put fresh water on her bedside table, and fussed about the temperature of the room- was she too hot, too cold, should he close the window, fetch an extra blanket? Sybil watched his outline weave between the brocade chairs and antique tables- all ridiculous furniture really, none of it designed for actual use- and thought of the little flat, the honeymoon that wasn't. The honeymoon he wanted- and yet here he was, tinkering with the veranda door instead of coming to bed because she loved to hear the waves at night. Tom surely had had ideas to make a home honeymoon special, which she had not appreciated in her enthusiasm for a holiday. Her old life had conditioned her to never think about the cost of things and sometimes she still failed.

"I think that will hold," he said about the rig to crack the door as he climbed in beside her. "Ah, no matter. If it blows open, just wake me and I'll fix it."

_Every waking minute_.

"Tom."

"What, love?"

Sybil turned his face to hers. "What can I do, to make you as happy as you've made me?"

His initial deflection- _Ah, nothing, nothing love, don't worry about that_- was so _Tom, _so forthright in his promises to her, so diffident and dismissive of what she could do in kind. His stare dropped to his hands when she pressed. "I know you love me."

"That's not what I asked."

"All I ever wanted was you. And we're married now..."

"All the more reason then."

Tom shifted in his discomfort; in his life, he had never asked anyone for anything and only _feckers _burdened their wives; he was his father's son that way. "If you mean what I promised you in York a hundred years ago- we're even. You said yes. That was just what I would do if you did. That's all that was."

"Don't say- 'all that was' is the moment that changed my life. No one had ever said anything like that to me- why do you think I reacted like such an idiot?" He couldn't help but laugh. "No one ever loved me that much. Perhaps I didn't believe anyone ever could," an admission that surprised Tom, who had never once considered anxiety about unworthiness might be mutual. "The women in my family were quite clear that no man would be interested in talking politics with the likes of me."

Tom smiled. "And all I ever wanted was to talk to you." _Still all I want _and he found an answer to her question. "Give me the chance to please you, to be good for you. Tell me what you need. Whether it's about our home, our families..." _A honeymoon away_. "Put your faith in me. I can't say I'll always succeed, but let me have the chance."

* * *

><p>The rig had held, the fire was out. Salt water from the sea and them lingered in the air and the sheets. They lay awake sharing the strange sensation of not being sure if it was the chill or the thrill of being alive making them shiver and seek out each other. They had spent the past two hours making love on their own terms, now with the time, space and status to be as indulgent as they liked. "We should be tired, shouldn't we?"<p>

"We should." Tom had, unbelievably, begun this day in his mother's house in another universe. "If I'm honest, I don't want it to end."

"It was wonderful, wasn't it?"

"The best of my life."

"Our life now." They kissed _will it always feel like this_? their hearts could have burst. "The best so far," she amended.

"The best so far," he agreed.

* * *

><p>It stormed the next day too.<p>

They had a leisurely breakfast indoors in their robes and read the newspapers, animatedly discussed the latest developments in the stories they cared about (the Peace Conference, the Countess' arrest, de Valera's arrival in the States), traded the funnies and shoulder-to-shoulder, completed all the Sunday puzzles. They discovered they were an unbeatable trivia team- Tom's command of history, books and current events was the perfect complement to Sybil's knowledge of fine arts, music and French phrases _turns out __t__hat Governess was good for something._

In the afternoon, they threw a blanket in front of the veranda doors (they were both of the opinion _we paid for this view, may as well make use of it_) and played cards for several hours. Sybil showed Tom the card tricks she and Thomas had picked up at the hospital. Late in the day, they debated whether to borrow umbrellas and venture outside for a walk. Tom frowned at the rain. "The fire's on, it's warm and cozy- why would we want to sit out there on a wet bench?"

"New place, new scenery, fresh air..." Sybil laughed at his skepticism. "You really don't understand the concept of holiday, do you?"

"We're not on holiday, we're on our honeymoon," he countered, arms encircling her waist. "It's only one day and I don't want to be anywhere I can't kiss you like this." The soft moan it elicited reminded him of his unfulfilled promise. "Come here," he urged, pulling her by the hand back down to the blanket. "I have a trick for you..."

* * *

><p>From the floor, Sybil lolled her head and peered out, past the veranda's black iron bars, at the slate-colored water, the opaque sky <em>like Howth <em>she smiled; the blanket tickled her nose. "Who needs Paradise?"

Grinning, her husband folded his arms across her raised knees. "So you liked it then?" She shot him a look- he and his trick had been duly complimented. "Fair enough."

"What_ was_ that sermon?"

Tom scooted down and Sybil reclined against him. "I feel bad for the Father- he had to write for a lapsed Catholic socialist, a Protestant, a Sinn Feiner, a libertine, a couple of English aristos and my mam. And he didn't even have pleasant weather to remark on!"

They stared out at the windswept beach. "Pleasant weather is overrated. And rain is definitely lucky for your honeymoon."

* * *

><p>They woke up to discover they had nodded off and it was dusk. The colored lanterns were lit and the few, brave slicker-clad souls outside hurried with purpose towards home.<p>

Starved, they perused the dinner menu, as Tom rubbed out a kink in his neck. "We could eat in the restaurant."

"I'm not in any state to dress now- you've seen to that." Sybil clapped the menu shut and announced her choice. "Fish and chips."

"That''s not on the menu." The most basic entree was poached cod, not that he'd checked.

"So?" Sybil said as she picked up the telephone. "Watch and learn." _Yes, this is Mrs. Branson... _and proceeded to place a double order with a recommended wine. There was a brief pause and then, in as Her Ladyship a voice as he'd ever heard her deploy, "We passed two shops on the drive, I'm sure you'll be happy to send someone, _thank you."_

Tom crossed his arms as she hung up. "So what should I order when it doesn't arrive?"

"Watch and learn," she repeated and sure enough, a cart with a double order and a white Bordeaux arrived. "You don't know these hotels, they'll do whatever you ask," Sybil told him, unable to find an end table that could accommodate two dinner plates.

Sybil knew _what_, but Tom knew how- or rather, _who: _some poor boy, soaked to the bone, on a borrowed bicycle. "I know because I used to _be _him."

* * *

><p>"This isn't any more ridiculous than breakfast in bed," Tom opined. <em>Let's eat in the bath <em>was Sybil's idea and he'd made a makeshift table across the tub_,_ complete with candle and flower. He even threw a hand towel over his arm like a _maître d_ as he poured the wine. "White with fish," he joked, then joined her.

"You waited tables, didn't you?"

Tom nodded as he unwrapped his meal. "For a month, when I was seventeen. My first job out of school. Nothing fancy. A friend's uncle owned the place- it was his job, but I broke his hand in football and he asked me to work it while it healed."

"You broke his hand _and_ took his job?"

"It was an accident. And I hated it." He plucked a chip. "The money was decent though. I served and cleared a bit when I first came over to England, while I was interviewing. And of course," he said with a rueful cock of his head, "my ill-fated stint as footman."

Sybil shook her head. "Not ill-fated," she said, a question formulating as she set down her wine. "I've always wondered why not."

"Why not what?"

"Why didn't you go through with it?" she asked. "It wasn't me. You were quite clear about that in your letter and in our subsequent discussions." She smiled bemusedly. "If you can call them that."

Tom didn't want to talk about it, the plot that almost wrecked his life and hers too, which he could see in hindsight, nor elucidate for her her influence in it. "You said your mother was giving you marital advice? Well, here's mine: never underestimate the power a woman has over a man in love," he chuckled. "You could get me to do damn near anything," sacrifice himself or save himself or both. "Remember that."

They moved on to other topics, talked until the bathwater turned cold. It was not revisited, but Sybil would remember and oh, how she would need to.

For now though...

* * *

><p>The darkness favored boldness and that which is done in the dark did doubly so. Sybil had never told Tom how, in Sligo, Erich had whispered as an aisde to her <em>faire l'amour is a natural opiate- <em>Tom would not have found that notion alluring and provocative, as she did- but it would explain their punchiness and what happened next. "I heard something." Her hand danced across his chest.

_That_ kind of something. "Where? At the hospital?"

"Yes, but not from a soldier. From a woman. Another nurse." She proceeded to relay, in elliptical Sybil-style, what she had overheard the married nurse tell her married friend. "Do you know what I mean?"

Process of elimination made him answer, "I think so," though he couldn't quite believe that's what she meant.

"She said it was just as- and we know it's safe because she's a nurse, so..."

"So..?" If she were just curious- well, that's what the bookstalls on Bachelor's Walk were for, she could learn about it the same way he had. If she wanted more... well, she'd have to say.

She almost didn't. She almost retreated back to her pillow. But _j__ust as good and risk free, _that's what she'd heard from the married nurse with one child(how she was able to be a married nurse)_._ It was worth a try- it wasn't like this proposition would ever be _easier_.

_Give me the chance_. Sybil looked over Tom, lifted one bare shoulder. "Only one way to know."

* * *

><p>"That was unlawful, by the way. What we just did."<p>

Sybil laughed. Another forbidden barrier breached and yet- _somehow, _in spite of all forewarning- the Empire still stood, the heavens hadn't crashed down upon them. She couldn't say she had exactly _liked_ it- but she liked that they hadn't been afraid to try, to be adventurous. Perhaps it was an acquired taste- one they would acquire, or not. Either way, they were properly married now and it was no one's damn business. "Well, you were responsible for my radical political education, it's only fitting you should be entrusted with my radical sexual one as well."

Tom was somewhat abashed by that. "At any event, you needn't worry. I don't plan to call the police."

Sybil pushed herself up on her elbows. "Perhaps we should have ourselves arrested," she posed stridently, "and put on trial for indecency. Our picture would be splashed across the newspapers, but all they would uncover about us is that we're quite ordinary- certainly not a threat to a moral society." Her husband appeared unconvinced, so she appealed to his sense of justice. "Perhaps we could get a stupid law tossed out."

"Perhaps. But the person who corrects the system is always the_ last_ to come forward," he reminded her, carefully considered as always, "while all the others who came before were run out on a rail or imprisoned or burned at the stake."

"True," she rued, for the first time coming down from the _we did it_ elation of getting married. It was easy for them in revolutionary Dublin, with their rebel coterie and drinks at _An Cloch_, to forget that they were outliers who held many opinions unwelcome and unacceptable in society, which was not merely a matter of taste- there were financial and possibly, if Father Fahey were to be believed, existential repercussions. Even in all their righteousness, they must remember the lengths mankind would go and always had gone to destroy difference, subversion of the status quo and its systems. They should expect no less. "It's not our world."

"Not yet," he said.

* * *

><p>Dawn was breaking, meek and mild. The storm had passed and the pale haze promised sun. They were awake, bedclothes loosed; it was time to rise and meet the day. "We really will have such a wonderful life."<p>

Sybil smiled. "Bet on it."


	91. Chapter 91: Summer 1919 Part I

_thanks as always!  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, June 1920 <strong>

"So, Tom," Matthew leans on the car and starts, "tell me about your plans."

Tom's head jerks up_- _he nearly bumps the underside of the hood- _how does he know_? Does Mary? the Crawleys?

_Does Sybil_?

* * *

><p>For days, Robert replays his conversation with his daughter. For nights, he doesn't sleep, sips Scotch as he stares blankly out toward the Transvaal, its wide skies, hardened eyes, and screams.<p>

_There are no rules in guerrilla war._

_The customs of civilized nations do not apply to civilian combatants._

Robert stays silent until he cannot bear it anymore. He never speaks of South Africa and his first conversation is to be, unthinkably, not with Matthew, a veteran himself, but his little girl in her childhood bedroom.

"Sometimes in the military," Robert swallows hard, avoiding her same childhood eyes, "we did not report things we did not want there to be a record of." The words are reluctant to come, but she waits patiently _she knows_. "The file says ten, but you said he came eleven times."

"Yes_._"

"You are certain?"

"Yes." Sybil's voice is sure, but not harsh. "I am."

She stares, but Robert cannot breathe underwater- he casts around the room for a lifesaver and lands on the silly fez elephant; the shop-owner had been so impressed that he picked it out personally, a great Lord taking such interest in hislittle daughter. "Do you think," he continues, but it is only a wish, "it was an oversight, a mistake that the file says ten?"

"No."

Robert is a poor swimmer, in water and in life, he can't submit to the current. She waits for her father to ask about the eleventh time, the time there is no record of, but he can't. He can't bear to know. This conversation is incomprehensible. He is furious and seizes on what's close-at-hand: _Branson, goddamn Branson. _This is how he looked after her. This is the future he provided her.

Robert stands and leaves abruptly, orders Barrow to book the soonest train to London; he will schedule an appointment with Shortt there. He knew, that ashen day at the Grantham Arms, this is how it would end. _It will not. _The Right Honorable Lord Grantham did not dedicate himself to order and peace in his home to watch his child and her child be sacrificed on the battlefield of Branson's war. He should have ended it at the Arms, but he will end it now.

Whatever it takes.

* * *

><p>Tom plays dumb. "My plans?"<p>

Matthew's smile falters and recovers as he reminds him, "Your anniversary?"

_Oh Jesus. _Tom nearly falls back with relief. "Ah. We'll see." Because he can't say _we won't be here. _

Matthew, ideal husband that he is, doesn't hide his disappointment. "Tom, I think, under the circumstances-"

Tom likes his brother-in-law, is thankful for his companionship in the house, but he is clueless. Tom is homeless, jobless, penniless- what money he and Sybil have is locked in a bank in a country they cannot return to- with a warrant out on him. He is under house arrest, his future wholly dependent on whatever mercy the father-in-law who hates him can or will extend- and at what price. Already His Lordship has annexed Tom's firstborn, a prelude of what is sure to be infinite extortion of the Branson family. Robert has declared the baby will be born at Downton by the most expensive doctor in the Empire; an unsubtle attempt to paper over the child's commoner blood in pound notes. That is their future, if they stay- Robert's perpetual reparations for the Branson babe's poor, unfortunate paternity.

And Matthew's main problem right now is the noise from his Rolls Royce. "Did you ask me here to give me marital advice or fix your car?"

Matthew likes his brother-in-law, is thankful for his companionship in the house, but _damned if he doesn't do it to himself_, always charging the wall instead of using the door. This is an easy task- shower Sybil with adoration and make sure the family sees it- but Tom refuses to "prove himself" to anyone. "You know, Mary and I- we don't blame you." Tom rummages for a socket cap, irked at Matthew's pursuit. "Look- I know you and Sybil are in a very different situation than Mary and me, but the Crawleys are a constant. They can be friends or foes, it's up to you."

_That's up to you. _In almost this spot, how romantic- cement, dust, the stench of oil, her purple checkered blouse, thank God he didn't stain her skirt with newsprint- but it was romantic, he can still feel the kiss that never came and he can't help but soften. Matthew thinks it's his argument and shows a winning grin. "The job of a Crawley girl's husband is never won. We must continually re-apply for it."

Tom adjusts a wrench and reminds Matthew of their disparate realities. "I never asked for Sybil's hand, nor would I ever have been given it."

* * *

><p>They have returned from London.<p>

Thomas moves swiftly from the stairs, but the downstairs lot are too dumb to take the hint. The dumbest of them remarks, "You're back- a second trip to Whitehall for His Lordship and so soon, hmm? This business with Lady Sybil and Mr. Branson-"

"- is no business of yours Mr. Moseley," Thomas snaps.

He tells Lord Grantham that Mr. Branson went with Mr. Matthew to Manchester to purchase an auto part, to which His Lordship nods. "Ask Lady Sybil to meet me in my library. And Barrow, make sure you take her arm on the stairs. If she objects, tell her I insist."

Barrow is too smart and too ambitious to release Lady Sybil before she's safely settled into the chair across from her father's desk. Robert is taken aback by her enormous, awkward size- dressed and waddling about; Cora spent most of her final trimester in bed. "The Home Secretary has an offer," he informs her. "You won't like it."

Sybil assumed as much. She also assumes Tom will hate it, which is why Papa is priming her first. "If you accept, Tom will avoid prosecution. He'll be a free man- free to return to Ireland."

"Return to Ireland?" Her father said that would be impossible; she is stunned. "How?"

Robert is a hero, he can see, at least until she hears the rest. "They'll destroy the warrant and his file and redact his name where it appears in others." _Yours, for example_. "He'll be free to travel anywhere without a record."

No record? "They'll keep carbon copies," _everyone knows that_. The British have been locking up Irishmen en masse on trifles- _to __uneven__ the field to their advantage,_ as everyone knows- _why would they throw Tom back_?

Robert does not tell her that Whitehall isn't worried about individual lawbreakers- Ireland can and will be put down by force, this "rebellion" is solely the product of British self-restraint- nor that he's confident stupid Branson will stumble into some other trouble and wind up behind bars without his powerful father-in-law to protect him. "There are public relations concerns."

Her father passes her a brown folder, stamped CLASSIFIED. "This is the best I could extract from the Home Secretary," he lies.

Sybil expects to find a Letter to the Press from Lady Sybil Branson, who has lived in Dublin and "writes" that British soldiers _never_ fire indiscriminately into crowds, never batter citizens with rifle butts, never trash residences during search, never threaten the life of an expectant mother and her unborn child. Never, ever- the British military is the best the world has ever known and wars can be won without a scratch to honor, the British military is proof of that!

"If you decline, Tom will be arrested and tried here," her father finishes as she opens it. Inside is a single sheet of paper, the letterhead not of Whitehall but Parliament-:

** AN ACT**

**of DIVORCE**

* * *

><p>As Tom drives south and west, toward Manchester <em>and Liverpool and Ireland<em> envisions a desolate coastline in Nantes, cold cheeks, cold sand, under the moon, before they see the trawler's silhouette. When it is only them two (three) alone, he will speak the sentiment Matthew fears has been blighted. He will assure her- but only her. Sybil understands; she sometimes questions his decisions, but never his motives. Fighting for Ireland is _for them_, so their child will never be an inferior race, a second-class citizen, a second sex, a half-breed. And Sybil not only understands this, she believes it. This is her dream too- well, it was before the house and the Crawleys took hold of her.

_I'll pick you every wildflower in Kerry and I'll keep every promise I ever made to you- I'll get it all back, the little flat, the hospital, the newspaper, medical college, our wonderful life, if you'll only- _

Yes, he has a plan.

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, June 1919<strong>

Everyone in the family has heard the details.

Everyone, that is, except him.

Mary and Edith were barely out of the car before Cora whipped them upstairs, where the doors were promptly shut. Tea was sent up, not served in the library _so as to not bother you _Cora explained and Robert pretended to be relieved.

The Dowager invited herself for dinner- with Sir Anthony in tow, so the ladies could cabal while he was stuck smoking cigars. "But Robert," his perceptive mother needled, "I should think you'd prefer _any_ subject to Sybil's life in Ireland- that _is_ what you said, isn't it?"

A footman smirked. "Indeed," Robert huffed.

At breakfast, Carson was in his usual Totem pole position behind Robert, so he couldn't probe for details from Edith, who almost certainly would have provided them.

At lunch, Robert eats alone while Cora and the girls go to Isobel's to fill her in.

It was_ three days_ before Mary wandered into the library while he was alone. She was in search of a book for the train to London, where she would presumably update Rosamund and Richard Carlisle- even_ Richard Carlisle_ was more in the loop about Robert's family than Robert.

"London," he mused, as his eldest scoured the shelves. "It won't be Dublin."

Mary stopped and turned; she knows him better than anyone and she is no fool. "Papa, I will tell you as much as you want to hear, but you have to ask."

But Robert doesn't know what he wants to hear.

That he ruined her wedding? That she cried (unlikely) because he was not there? That she realizes she's made a terrible mistake, her first taste of "real living" was bitter not sweet, and it's only her Papa's benevolence and not _Branson's prospects_ keeping her above squalor?

Mary spared him the questions- and more, the answers- with a wise, "As I thought." The sympathy in her voice confirmed his suspicion that he hadn't been much missed at all. "Whatever Branson is or isn't, the relationship is real." Her attempt to steer her father from future defeats, _this is not winnable_. "It's not a mad infatuation or a juvenile tantrum. I'm afraid she simply loves him."

"Yes, but love doesn't make a successful marriage," Robert argued. "It is not even necessary, as you and I know."

_Do we_? That her father saw her as his confidante in cynicism made her, perhaps uncharacteristically, sad. In a few hours, she will show a too-wide smile for Richard at Victoria Station. Lines have started to set on her face, and Mary can't help thinking that smiles for Matthew would set differently. Or perhaps she would be able to accept them more easily because they were true. And Sybil's smile in the Dublin church will be ageless. "We both may know it, but only you are sure it's right."

* * *

><p>Violet arrived to see Mary off- and conspire with Cora. Their spies had reported that Sybil's new domicile was adequate. Revolutionary Dublin was out of their hands, but the flat they could improve. <em>People come out of the woodwork for weddings<em> was Violet's alibi and hence came furniture, kitchenware, pre-paid coal, milk delivery, et cetera, all mysteriously arrived with no return address. "Edith mentioned Sybil would like a gramaphone, but Tom says they can't afford it."

Violet recalled an elderly uncle in Vancouver. Smithers could put in the order tomorrow, it would be there by afternoon. Cora was skeptical that a man in his nineties would be up on music records. "We must be careful. If Robert finds out-"

"Sir Richard then," Violet reconsidered. "He ought to be good for something. Perhaps he will find himself in the market for a young Irish correspondent to be based in London. Or better yet, Manchester."

Her mother-in-law despised emotionalism, but Cora could have cried- with Violet as an ally, there was a chance Sybil could be restored to the house and normalize relations with her and _Tom_. "You sent the roses to her, didn't you? Thank you. Thank you."

"Now, now," Violet patted her arm, "We've been here before."

"But Mary made a young girl's mistake- she didn't try to torch the place."

"Nonsense," Violet dismissed. "Arsonists or not, Sybil is family and Branson too now, Heaven help us. Keep me current on the developments from Dublin and don't worry about Robert. Men hate when they don't get what they want. They don't have our familiarity with it."

* * *

><p>Anna never stayed this late at the servants' table. Only she and Thomas remained, by mutual calculation, but Mr. Carson was hovering, undoubtedly eavesdropping for details. A cavernous yawn finally spurred the old butler to bed and Anna handed Thomas Lady Sybil's card. "Not Lady Sybil anymore," Thomas noted with pride. "Was it nice?"<p>

"Very. Small, but it suited them." Anna would not have fathomed a deep chat with Thomas about a wedding, but he was interested and Anna trusted him on matters of Lady Sybil.

"I wish her well." Not only because she treated him as a person, but because she had succeeded at what he had failed to do: break away from this house and take her chance on herself. In his quarters, Thomas read the card- chipper and short, and included her new address- _Mrs. Thomas Branson 51 Merrit Square, Dublin_- if he should ever like to write to her, she could update him on her job search and how she fared as a former war "volunteer."

Thomas placed it carefully in the box that held all the letters from friends he had ever received in his life, increasing its contents by a quarter.

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, June 1919<strong>

Liam ran into Rebecca Halloran in the Iveagh Gardens, near the Harcourt Street offices. She asked about the wedding, before telling Liam about the Propaganda meeting she'd just come from regarding _the next phase_.

"Active resistance," Rebecca elaborated. The people had done well with passive resistance, the _cast a ballot, wear a pin_ part, but Sinn Fein had to prepare them mentally and morally for the hell that was to come. "We can't have all the people who voted for independence turn tail, '_oh, we didn't mean any trouble_,' once the tanks roll in."

"Tanks?" Liam echoed. "You must have better intel than us."

Rebecca looked at him oddly. Liam was not surprised at the supposition that the British would escalate militarily- of course they would- but part of Sinn Fein's modus operandi, and indeed its broad success with the public, was that it had re-framed Irish revolution in safe terms: aspirations and elections instead of militarism. It's why Sinn Fein operated separate from the IRA and was populated with clean-cut, university-educated staffers. It was too soon to talk about tanks.

Rebecca asked Liam if he'd read the editorial in Tom's newspaper (and for that matter, had Tom?) and produced it from her satchel. It had run on Sunday, the day everyone reads the papers- except people on their honeymoon and people hungover from their wedding.

**DEFEAT FROM VICTORY - The Irish Daily Editorial Board  
><strong>

_Last December, Ireland cast a historic vote for independence. Irish of all stripes put aside class, creed, and party to express their shared desire for self-determination. On the ballot, this desire was labeled Sinn Fein- a political placeholder, as it had no longstanding policy positions like the Parliamentary, Socialist and Unionist parties. Sinn Fein was never meant to be operational and its new, radical agenda is not representative of the two-thirds of the Irish citizenry who voted for it. Nor did two-thirds of the Irish people vote for war- indeed, it was the _anti-war, anti-conscription_ movement that united Ireland in the 1918 election. Ireland's hope has been democratically expressed. Her friends, particularly in America, have heard our cry. Ireland must now be patient and pursue independence through diplomatic channels, rather than demand it at the point of a barrel.  
><em>

Liam winced. "Absolutely awful," Rebecca voiced for him. "What a bunch of cowardly hacks."

"Point taken," Liam conceded. _ If this is what "moderate" newspapers were printing_...it wasn't too soon- he just hoped it wasn't too late.

"Your republican brother's employer." Rebecca took back the paper and balled it up in her fist. "You know where our newspaper office will be, when Tom decides it's time for action."

* * *

><p>The first days and nights of married life were bliss. Both Sybil and Tom were their best selves and the little flat was full of generosity and gratitude. As an example: they each tried to sneak awake before the other: Sybil so she could make her husband breakfast, Tom so he could bring his wife tea in bed- a race that quickly escalated to them both waking while it was still dark, they laughed, declared a truce, and snuggled back under the warmed blankets. Tom's favorite place to be was home, which had never before been true; it was, as so many novelists waxed, where he was king- not of its occupants, but of his own life. This had also been never been true- he'd been under the despotic thumb poverty and class. Now, he had a foot on the ladder up, all around him the proof of what his ambition wrought: furniture purchased in column inches and word count and a wife similarly won, with words that counted.<p>

Sybil was almost dizzy on the freedom- even the simple choice to have tea an hour later and the ability to be change her mind again without having to inform anyone or be told no, she was expected or obligated to do otherwise. She discovered that after a decade of deliberate slipping and shrinking from the Crawley household, she thrived on the importance and attention she was bestowed here by her husband, like a flower growing toward the sun.

They were never tired in those days, never down; frustrations and disappointments were easily dispatched. They were in love, they had the life they wanted, and the momentum still to dream.

* * *

><p>Two weeks later after supper, Sybil was in the bedroom organizing the closets, Tom was at the table reading and enjoying a jazz record on their new gramaphone when there was a knock at the door. Tom dropped his magazine- at this hour, it was probably a <em>Daily <em>courier with a lead for him to run down.

"Sybil!" He ran back and found her surrounded by piles of sweaters. "It's from the hospital!" He held his breath as he handed her the envelope.

She fiddled with it a moment, to shore up her confidence. "Surely they wouldn't bother to courier a rejection?" Tom urged her to open it and find out. He was as nervous as he'd been in the old Renault outside the post office, when he'd received his employment answer from the _Daily_; the stakes were lower, comparatively, but somehow he wanted this more _please don't let her be disappointed._ He was amazed at how calm she was as she read it and stuttered, "They want to hire me. I got it- I got the job!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: the next chapter is entitled The Nurse :)_


	92. Chapter 92: July 19, 1919 Part I

_it's not the Nurse, but you were all so worried after last chapter! thanks as always. _

_this is based on the extraordinary true event...  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, June 1920 <strong>

"It's the only way!" her father splutters, pupils dilating, neck reddening, as he leans across the desk. He is furious she is not reacting as he wishes, a wrath Sybil is all-too-well acquainted with. Robert's knuckles, like his jaw, are clenching, threatening to crush AN ACT which, like the words he surely wants to unleash- about her, about _Branson_, about them- he barely manages to restrain. But he doesn't hold back to spare her, only to aid his desired outcome: her name on AN ACT OF DIVORCE, which she drops like a contact poison as the situation- his threats, the lie, _the big grand lie_, what is _really _happening here- becomes clear to her. "If you want to save your husband from prison," he presses, "you _must_ do this."

_Give up the man I love for a system I don't believe in? _

Like hell she will.

* * *

><p>She is skulking- watching, waiting, evading staff- in an ancient corner of the Great Hall <em>Tom should be back from Manchester soon. <em>The Gordian knot that has been in her stomach since she came home _home, home _on the leafy block of Merrit Square and saw the yellow bouquet tightens. _Red means run_. She nervously thumbs the rose petal she plucked from a nearby vase. The prize roses are in bloom; somehow it is already June. _Marry in June when the roses blow... _the tune the bell-ringer whistled to her outside the chapel. _What has the last year wrought for him, is he even still in this world_? There will be a new person in it- _ours- _in two weeks or less. She is a mother already, as odd as that feels to say, but she can't remember if she ate this afternoon- though the fitful child inside her suggests not- and she thinks of the hungry, exhausted night just a few short weeks ago in the Phoenix Park when she looked up at the cold moon and opined to Liam that it must somehow be fate: _it must all be burned first for us to rise out of the ashes. _

He cut a queer expression, then told her the Phoenix Park was not named for that enduring bird. "The English didn't understand the Irish, _fionn uisce- _it means 'clear water'- they just called it as it sounded."

_Yes but- _she started to say, but kept to herself, the Irish called their war _our war _The Rising for a reason.

* * *

><p>Tom enters, shoulders heavy as they always are these days, from the burdens of life in exile.<p>

It's only half-five, but the dread of dinner with the Crawleys was already upon him. The sneers and sideswipes about the Bransons' straits, conservative opinions he could not oppose because he needed his conservative father-in-law's money and mercy. He did not even have Sybil at the table now, as Robert's London doctor had advised she should eat several small, specially-prepared meals and stay in bed as much as possible- and his wife, like him, was in no position to revolt.

So he'd dress for dinner and suffer the subsequent, insufferable all-male brandies and Robert's pontification about land and rent and _responsibility- _an impolitic subject for an Irishman, especially sore for one who had recently been evicted from his country as he and Sybil had been- as Matthew tried in vain to include him in the conversation. Robert and his heir would lead the march to join the women, while Tom and Isis (not necessarily in that order) followed them. The Crawley women would circle around him, but their attempts to be kind only made him feel worse: was he excited about fatherhood, was he pleased with how the nursery had been prepared with Sybil's old cot and Sybil's old crib and Sybil's old wooden horse, _won't it be wonderful to have a baby in the house, there hasn't been one since Sybil_!

And what can he say? _Well, since the Auxies took an ax to the cradle in Dublin_ _in a terror campaign backed by_ your_ people_ _t__o protect_ your _power and interests._.. oh it's wonderful, just wonderful how the world turns.

* * *

><p>As Sybil steps out to meet him, she remembers how she once walked through walls to escape this life <em>the truth is I'll stay at Downton until you want to run away with me<em>_ I'd wait forever _and how she returned, a _doran_ in her childhood home until he appeared, put his hand over his heart, ran to her as she ran to him.

_Run._

Over the land and the sea_._

Rise out of the ashes.

The calculation on his face when he sees she's been waiting _what is it now, what have they taken from us now _Tans, Auxiliaries, her family breaks her heart, but his spirit enlivens when she takes his hand, warm and soft- it's been some days since she's sought his out and he's thrilled to find it as familiar as ever- and pulls him into the privacy of the cloakroom, redolent with wool and cedar and summer heat. Her face tips up earnestly as if to kiss him in the dark, close space. "Let's get out of here," she whispers, breath on his lower lip. God help him, he's as mad for her as ever.

"The house?"

She shakes her head. "No. England."

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin <strong>

**July 19, 1919**

The day the tanks rolled into Dublin.

Sybil had worked the overnight shift on Friday, July 18th- her first solo rounds since she started work at the charity hospital in St. James. Junior nurses got the worst shifts, but Friday night into Saturday had been reasonably uneventful and at 6am she punched her time-card, put on her crimson cape with the hospital insignia, and walked to catch the 6:17 tram back to city center.

There was no express service, so Sybil read her book, a galley copy from Mary of a debut mystery novel "which Richard might publish, it was written by a VAD," a Mrs. Christie, aged 29, which was alright. But when she raised her head at a traffic light across the river from the Four Courts, she had to blink several times- terribly confused, as she'd later tell Tom, as to whether she'd been transported to London because of all the Unions Jacks and posters of King George V lining the streets.

The Victory Parade.

Sybil sighed. The Peace Conference had proven no victory for Ireland, Sinn Fein's petition for nation status had been summarily dismissed, President Wilson apparently couldn't find the time to defend Ireland between hamming for photos with Lloyd George.

She disembarked at Sackville, two stops before her own, to take in the scene. The mute day-laborers hired to hang the bunting and strip the Sinn Fein posters were the opposite of celebratory. Sybil watched one older man in a pilly navy knit cap plaster an immovable Jack Bull over a green-and-orange exhortation:

**CITIZENS of DUBLIN!**

**Do What Must Be Done For ****YOUR**** Country!**

It was one of Rebecca Halloran's slogans, she'd shown them the mock-ups at An Cloch a few nights ago.

She sighed again and headed south toward home.

As she passed Trinity, she saw some Irish veterans in their British khaki uniforms queued. _How strange it must be for them_, torn between two loyalties. Sybil smiled politely and tipped her head in respect for their service; they responded to the uniformed nurse in kind. She could have marched with the Red Cross, but had never even considered it; which seemed now to be the correct decision, since even the decorations felt hostile.

At home, Tom was just getting up- he greeted her with bedhead and hot tea, _what a nice husband I have _to sit with her at the kitchen table, in his pjs and bare feet, ask about her day and listen as she animatedly describes it in detail. "Silly," he said with a kiss to her forehead when she remarked as much, as he rose to make them some toast, "I waited years for the chance to pass the time with you."

They had decided to attend the parade as witnesses rather than revelers and at noon, they assembled- Clare and Liam, who'd come down with Aileen (Mother Branson, of the opinion "not my war, not my peace," had declined)- on Westmoreland Street, not far from the little flat. Tom put Aileen on his shoulders while Liam kept his arms crossed, chafed more than the others at the transformation of Dublin into Little Britannia.

At first, the parade atmosphere- with popcorn and whistles and children's shrieks, friendly chat with fellow onlookers- was like any other. Because at first, the processional was like any other, bagpipers and banners, veterans and VADs, until the jubilant crowd was drowned out by the sudden, terrible groan of a tank.

And then another.

And another.

And _another._

A line of tanks- combat tanks built for battlefields and trenches, equipped with canons and machine guns that rotated and aimed. Clare clutched her heart when one swivelled toward them. "Jaysus, I hope those don't have bullets in them!"

A line of tanks, in residential Dublin!

The children's shrieks stopped. Their parents and the Branson clan watched tensely as the most monstrous tank halted and the Viceroy, the top British military officer in Ireland, appeared and saluted as the band struck up the British National anthem. "Why doesn't he just piss on us while he's at it!" an elderly man hissed. Not even his wife criticized him for the swear in the face of such confrontation.

But for many, fear became compliance. "Who is singing?" Aileen's voice cracked as she craned her head to spot the traitorous chorus. "Why are they singing? This isn't our song!"

A soldier in one of these uniforms had murdered her father the last time tanks came through Dublin. Sybil flushed with shame for her homeland. _This is too far. _Little Aileen, one fist balled up, launched loudly into her own counter-protest ballad: "I'll tell you a story of a row in the town, when the green flag went up and the Crown rag came down-"

There were Royal Irish Constables on crowd control and Tom quickly shushed her- "It's not the place, love"- in defiance of his own heart, which said they should all shout it. Aileen, usually well-behaved, was in tears over the crowd's betrayal of the Irish cause and their perceived support of the people who had destroyed her family. Liam and Tom were keen to leave. "I've seen all I need to see," Tom declared in disgust.

"It's a pathetic state of affairs in this country," Liam spat. "'Long to reign over us'- aye, they'll get their wish!"

"Ho, ho, here we go," Clare muttered to Sybil. "Our afternoon will be all Ireland, Ireland, Ireland!"

But Sybil had been awake for sixteen hours and she had to be up in six more for her shift. Politics would have to wait.

* * *

><p>Sybil was awoken around dinnertime by a loud and spirited coda of <em>a row in the town<em> and a mild headache. She put on her robe and padded into the parlor dirty with glasses of whiskey and milk and remnants of a confectionery run in the powdered sugar on the carpet and around Aileen's mouth. The three of them were huddled on the floor and she surveyed them with a smile. "Oh my, have I stumbled into the plot to overthrow the Empire?"

Tom scrambled up. "I'm sorry, love. Did we wake you?"

"Yes, but I needed to get up." She briefly considered that she should clean up, but plopped onto the sofa with a yawn. "Is that Gwen's typewriter?"

"Yes, I bought it off her when she left." She hadn't noticed it at his cottage, but her mind then had been on... other things. He'd had it shipped over here and then sent in for a repair and they'd only picked it up today. Why today, she was about to find out.

"We've done something." Tom grinned, a shine on his face and Liam's _must have been quite a party _as she eyed the bottle."I've done something. But I'm proud of it and I hope you will be too." He presented her with his latest article.

He watched his wife somewhat nervously as she read it- only now did he fully realize the risk he'd taken with it, for himself and for her. Her first comment was delivered over his shoulder, to Liam. "I assume the 'patriotic bystander' is you?" Liam nodded. _Of course. _

"Well?" Tom asked. He trusted her opinion; she was his most objective critic and it wasn't diehards like his brother that he wanted to influence.

"Very clever, darling. Perhaps too clever for publication," which he knew was her way to let him down easy. _A critic and realist._ "And I'm always proud of you." She kissed his cheek with consolation. "We'll hang it on the wall after Callahan nixes it."

_Right. About Callahan- _He followed her into the kitchen. "What if I told you he wouldn't reject it?"

"Tom, he won't print that."

"I agree- _he _wouldn't."

She stopped, kettle half-filled. "Tom... what did you do?"

He told her.

Sybil was shocked, to be honest- Tom had as much of an anti-authority streak as she did, but _a little thing called money _meant he didn't often allow it to rear its head in the workplace; he had taken his lumps, deserved and not, many times from Carson without argument. It was out of character for him to circumvent his boss, especially an editor he respected, which told her how much he believed in it. "Bully for you, Tom. Really."

"You're not mad?"

"Why, because you followed your conscience?"

"Because I could be fired for it."

She laughed- _that_ was obvious- but she didn't fear the future, whatever it was. "Besides, it's done now," she said. "Luckily, at least one of us will have a job tomorrow!"

* * *

><p>By tomorrow, Tom Branson was a household name.<p>

There was not a person in the capital who had not seen, read and had an opinion about Saturday evening's _Irish Daily _headline- including Dublin Castle and the Brigadier General B. Edmund Lowell.

**TANKS ROLL INTO DUBLIN **

By Tom Branson, _Daily _staff

British military tanks, armored lorries, automatic weapons and other war-machines were on display Saturday afternoon in the residential neighborhoods of Dublin South in numbers not seen in Ireland since the country was put under Martial Law in 1916.

20,000 uniformed British troops and supporters of the war effort marched under so many Union Jacks hoisted around the Irish capital that one intelligent woman was left confused "as to whether I had woken up in London." (The offices of Lord Mayor Laurence O'Neill, a vocal nationalist, and the republican-led Dublin City Corporation, confirm they did not authorize this display on City property, without City permits, out of compliance with City ordinances). The uniformed regiments included several thousand demobilized Irish veterans, as well as thousands of currently-commissioned British officers and soldiers recently relocated from the Continent to Ireland.

The processional of tanks terminated in front of the Bank of Ireland. Many in the crowd wondered what threat could have caused such an armament around the bank where so many Dublin residents and businesses make their savings and loans. But it was only the chosen location for the Viceroy to make his salute, which he did to "God Save the King."

The "Victory Parade" was surely seen by its organizers as a success. As one patriotic onlooker remarked, it was the most impressive spectacle "since that great horse was gifted to Troy!"


	93. Chapter 93: July 19, 1919 Part II

**Dublin **

**July 21, 1919**

"Branson!"

Tom had barely set his case down Monday morning when Callahan hollered for him. But there was no heckling from his colleagues as he made the long walk to the boss' office just spines stiffened in solidarity and a muttered _good luck._

This was the third time in his life Tom expected to be fired. But he'd learned with Lord Grantham after the count and Carson after the cow-pat that if an employer means to fire you, they don't waste their time reaming you out; they simply ask for an address to forward what's owed.

"..._ a four-hundred word report on a parade- a goddamn parade Branson!..._"

Thus, as soon as Callahan launched into a red-faced tirade, Tom let his mind drift behind his mustered expression of contrition. Sure, Callahan could be pissed that he had circumvented his editors and slipped his article into the printer- but not _that _pissed since the circulation numbers were off the charts (when had a Saturday edition ever sold out on a _Sunday_?) and it had earned the _Daily_ some (undeserved) cred with the ascendant republican leadership.

"... _Dublin Castle breathing down our necks_..."

Callahan's secretary had even slipped as he was coming in this morning that there's been a telegram from New York- they were having a laugh about it on the Bowery, that powerful corridor of the Irish-American political machine.

"... _You know I ought to..._"

Enough_. _His paycheck safe, Tom cut him off. "All _I_ know is a lot of military equipment's been moved into Dublin and if you can tell me the ship it's being moved back out on, I'll resign right now. But I don't think you can."

Callahan stared him down. But he had no answer and Tom knew his boss respected his position, if not his methods. Even fair-weather Irish deputy editors were still Irish. A punishment was handed down: desk duty for a week- corrections and second-source calls, the most tedious job in the newsroom- and next week, the Sanitation beat _the perfect assignment for a little shit-stirrer like yourself._

Tom bit back a smile. _Sticks and stones..._

"Branson." He turned back- Callahan's face was stony. "That was your one chance."

* * *

><p>The little flat was dark and undisturbed when Tom arrived home. He crept into the bedroom and found his wife asleep, her back to him. She didn't stir when he came in. It was rough adjusting to the overnight schedule, but she seemed peaceful now and he smiled. He took off his coat and tie and hung them; unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the chair for laundering later. He was really feeling very good- he was a bit of a hero among not just <em>Daily <em>reporters or readers in Dublin, but in New York City too.

Imagine! If he and Sybil ever went to Manhattan and he walked her into one of the supper clubs downtown in a red dress- he didn't know if she owned one, but in his head it was definitely red- and some important figure recognized him.

He chuckled as he took down his braces- he'd never dreamed of fame before, but it was before he achieved his ambition: this life with this woman. He leaned over- the clock showed nearly seven, she had to be up soon- and he slid in behind her. Her hair was slightly damp under his chin, remnants of a bath he was sorry to have missed. _One of the surprises of married life_. Honest-to-God, Sybil slipping off the strap of her nightdress after Scotland was the most he'd seen of the opposite sex in four years, but at home with her now it seemed she was always changing or undressing or bathing or too hot- he found her sorting mail the other morning in nothing but a chemise-and he would feel bad if he hadn't often caught her glancing similarly at him. _Like what you see, Miss_? he teased when she hovered. _Yes. _ And standing in the twilight in their bedroom- all he can give her, not big nor grand but full of passion- and reiterates his promise from the cottage, _I will love you more and better than anyone._

He kissed her ear now and whispered, "Do you own a red dress?"

She came awake, but their finances trumped his advances. "What did Callahan say?"

"Feck Callahan," he breathed, hand curling around her hip. "What time do you have to be in?"

"_Tom_." All it took for him to relent. _She has this wife thing down. _"I'm not fired, but I am insolent."

"That's it?"

"I am a few other unmentionables as well."

"So you're still employed," she posited, rolling over with an impish smile, "_and _you published. _Your_ story, not some edited-to-death version."

Sybil Branson had to be the only wife on earth turned on by her husband's gambit to get fired, but he understood perfectly: they were each other's audacity. "Careful," he warned, "you'll encourage me."

"I certainly hope so." She kissed him, a kiss that instructed him to take off his trousers and as he did, under her admiring gaze, "What was that about a red dress?"

"Oh, just that you should buy yourself one," he replied with a wink. "You never know."

* * *

><p><strong>Yorkshire, June 1920<strong>

_No, England_.

Her words hang among the summer macks and parasols in the cloakroom, like the sun after a storm. He can't believe she's said them nor the instant panacea they are. She is still herself. She is still his.

Someday, he will tell her, whisper to her, the doubt that Robert drove into him the night he caught the last boat without her. Yes, they had a plan _but_... if anything had happened to her he couldn't have- he wouldn't have- lived with himself. But not now. "Are you sure?"

"We can wait for the Home Secretary or we can simply leave British jurisdiction." INTERPOL won't be functional until 1923 and she doubts "suspected arson" will set off an international manhunt. "If they really wanted to arrest you, they'd have done it." She smiles- _y__ou taught me that- _he smiles back. He remembers- _Callahan_- when life was far less complicated.

"There's a boat, from Nantes-" he starts to say but she stops him with a nod. _Yes, _she knows. About the trawler across the Celtic Sea, Sherkin Island, the secret route back into Ireland. Tomorrow, she will leave a letter on the mantle to her family. They'll catch the first train to Bournemouth, take only what they can carry (which is pretty much all they have left anyway) and once they are safely in France (the French authorities would never hand over an Irish republican asylum-seeker to the English), they can figure out their next passage.

_But. _There is a reason they fled here, not France. "But we don't- the money, Syb."

But Mary, who understands Tom better than he knows, pushed a twenty-pound note into her sister's hand after they arrived: _Spare Tom having to ask Matthew. _ "And I can take some of my old jewelry to sell. With the War over, we should get a fair price." Her most valuable piece, the sapphire necklace, she took for sentimental reasons to Dublin but most of it is here. "It's not like I have any use for it now." She suddenly realizes Whitehall will blame her father for Tom's escape. He will be humiliated, hoodwinked by his own daughter he was trying to help. He will never forgive her for this. _Will Mama_? _Mary_?

She almost falters, but the recollection of an AN ACT restores her. Her hand never trembled as she held it- not because it wasn't fearsome, but because it held no power over the faithful. _I will stay true to you_. With those six words, it is no threat at all.

* * *

><p>Robert decides upon reflection, as Thomas fixes his white tie, that it went well, <em>as well as could be expected. <em>Sybil didn't scream or cry. She was upset, of course _of course, you are my dear. If there were any other way... _There has never been a divorce in the Crawley family; it is so preposterous she will never suspect he is the one who proposed it.

She is just so _difficult _now- Branson's influence, surely- like some Irish Tammany boss earlier with her arms cynically crossed. She should be grateful her father has lobbied for Branson. _T__hink of the child, Sybil- _that's what he has done, suppressed his own resentments because Sybil won't ever move on if Branson's wallowing in prison writing her love letters full of untested promises. But put him to the test and Branson will choose Ireland over her and the baby. She'll be hurt, yes- but it's for the best. Someday, she will see her situation as he does,_ as it is_- when is a mother herself, her child's future secure- and she will understand why.

She will thank him when she is Lady Sybil Grey.

* * *

><p>The plan made- <em>tomorrow-<em> they retreat to her old bedroom, quiet with their own thoughts. She has been standing too long and eases on to the bed. Tom catches the glimpse of weariness and takes both her hands, dropping down, and kisses them in her lap. _It__'s been a hard month, _their shared unspoken thought. The baby kicks his cheek- _ow_- and she giggles, that pretty sound, his favorite in world. "I was afraid they'd gotten to you. I was afraid I was losing you."

His voice is strong, but it doesn't fool her. "You'll never lose me."

"I know you have other choices." A different future procurable by title and fortune, and she'd only have to say the word; her father would love nothing more, he's sure, and even the others would think it preferable. They've accepted their marriage, but they don't understand it, they scrutinize her at the table, around the fire, for evidence that the 'juvenile madness' is wearing; it cuts him deeper than when they look at him. The delighted heel thumping his palm isn't a folly and it's about time a Branson was welcomed more than merely tolerated in the world. "But this _is it_ for me."

Not _all I have_, but _all I want_. Sybil hears his affirmation. She can see the chinks being back in this house has put in his armor. How casually her father handed her the document to undo him, undo them, their nascent family. After all this, he still can't consider that perhaps it's for real. But she learned an important lesson in this house: don't waste time waiting for acceptance that will never come. "Tomorrow. And then we'll go and put this all behind us." It feels good to fight again. "Get up, Tom." She smiles wryly. "I don't want you on your knees. That's not what we're about."

He embraces her from behind, forearms settled on her belly, and exhales. "We're going home."

_Home_ means Ireland to him. To her... well, France is a nice country, the Continent a big place. No one would ever think to look for them in Gibraltar... Tunis... Cairo. There's a boat to anywhere. But that's a conversation for tomorrow, for France. _For now though_...

The maids and footmen are rustling in the hall; one will be knocking for their evening requests any moment. "Right now?"

She did not tell him about the option to divorce- it's not an option, why wound him unnecessarily?- but everyone else she loves will know about the road she spurned. _The bridge back home burned_. But it's not home. The only way is those six words. "Is there a better way to show you?" _whose side I am on, _an answer as much to the Home Secretary, to her country, to her father as to him.

* * *

><p>Robert heads down the hall, upbeat. He means to invite Tom to have an drink before dinner, to show Sybil it isn't personal; he's sure Branson is a fine man- for someone else. More important, he must keep them separated them until she reaches that conclusion herself. His daughter is intelligent and practical, but Branson has cast a sort of spell on her- he can't bear another of her full-throated recitations about the importance of his "work" for the Irish cause and how she's a socialist too. But that's fine. If she won't divorce Branson for herself or the child, let her free him for Ireland. <em>Ireland can have him <em>and Sybil can have a new future, he'll fix it for her, with-

He is stopped by an unmistakable sound.

* * *

><p>Robert returns in a foul mood. O'Brien is barely dismissed before he demands, "What about love makes women so stupid?"<p>

Cora reminds him that men are plenty stupid in love- Helen didn't invade Troy. Robert doesn't contest. He needs to sound reasonable, he needs to sell her mother on his plan. "Robert- what is it?"

"This doesn't leave this room. I haven't decided what to do with it," he prefaces. "Larry Grey came to see me in London." Cora receives this news without expression- she has never liked Larry or his interest in Sybil, and that was before his little prank. But circumstances have changed dramatically- Sybil is not a rosy youth with her choice of partners, she's a social pariah, a soon-to-be divorcee with the chauffeur's child. "He wants to marry her, Cora. He wanted to marry her when she was seventeen and we said no and he wants to now. In spite of it all."

_He's lost it_, she thinks. _This business with Tom__ has actually driven him out of his mi__nd. _"Robert, Sybil is already married."

"Cora, we have to face facts. Branson-"

Cora stops him. _His name is Tom_ and if Robert is still unable to accept even that, then she cannot continue this conversation.

Robert takes a deep breath and doesn't contest that either. He calmly lies that the Home Secretary has made divorce a condition of _Tom's_ pardon and without it, _Tom_ could be sentenced to as much as twenty years in prison. "The child's whole life, Cora."

He is unprepared for her dry, half-choked sob_- _over what? The loss of Branson in their lives? The end of Sybil and Branson, a relationship that made them both tear their hair out? Still, he consoles her. "I know it will be hard for her to accept- at first- but it's for the best. For our child and for hers."

"To be severed from its father?"

"When his father is a criminal, yes!" Robert breaks. He can't abide this charade of reluctant executioner. Branson is a danger to Sybil- whether she sees it is not the point, that's what fathers are for. "He threw her to the wolves, Cora! You heard him- 'I don't _think_ they'll hold her'- for God's sake, do you know what we do to people in those prisons?"

For thirteen months, he's insisted the reports in the _Manchester Guardian_ and the New York newspapers were embellished, _the Irish are known for their dramatics_. "What do 'we' do, Robert?"

"You can ask Branson if Sybil refuses a divorce." Robert strides out, but not before, "You scoffed at Grey, but he's offered to restore her reputation, to raise another man's child as his own, a second chance at a respectable life_._ What's Branson ever done for her?"

She doesn't answer- it was a rhetorical question, he doesn't want her opinion on it- but inside she shouts: _He accepted her for what she is, which we never did. You still don't! You think she'll swap him for Larry Grey and we'll be back to London before the War, but it will never be like that again.. _Sybil would shout it; Sybil's husband doesn't shield her from the truth. _What do we do, Robert? Tell me what we do to people over there._

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin<br>**

**July 21, 1919**

Deep inside the fortified compound, the aide's shoes echoed as he descended the circular steps of Dublin Castle's squat, medieval Record Tower- the oldest bastion of English rule in Ireland, which smelled of mold- until he reached the cell-cum-office of Brigadier General B. Edmund Lowell.

"Sir."

Lowell reluctantly raised his head, accepted with a heavy exhale of annoyance a copy of Saturday's _Daily_, which he had read on Saturday with everyone else in Dublin and now only pretended to skim before returning it. He had not been deployed from France to deal with Fenian hit pieces by low-level reporters. "Give it to the local division." A few busted windows, a broken printing press and the _Daily_ would cease to be a problem.

The aide remained. "Sir, this Branson fellow's brother is a Shinner-"

"So what? They all are, these days."

"_Governmental_. A staffer for Mr. Michael Collins." Collins was not yet on the radar as a threat. Lowell did a quick survey and pushed the thin, predictable file on **Branson, L. **aside. The aide persisted. "And then there's his wife."

The Brigadier crossed his arms; his shoulders were broad and stretched the seams of his blue suitcoat. "Don't tell me," he replied with heavy sarcasm, "she's a Shinner too?"

The aide's head shook slowly. "No, Sir."

The file- **Branson, S.**- included a copy of a marriage registration and two photographs. The aide watched as the Brigadier inspected the three pieces of information and suddenly understood why a little newspaper article was on the desk of one of the Empire's top military men. The marriage registration dropped on top of TANKS ROLL INTO DUBLIN. "Lord Grantham's son-in-law wrote this?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I assumed he served?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Where?"

In South Africa, the aide said, "as it happens, under the Viceroy when the policy of severity was-"

"I'm aware of the policy," the Brigadier cut off caustically. _I was there._

_No quarter, no prisoners. _

Not that this aide knew about that. He had not served in the War. Twenty-one was the stated age of Lord Grantham's daughter on the marriage registration. "American investor," he cracked.

"What would you like me to do, Sir?"

The first photograph was clipped from a society paper- _London, June 1914_- of a debutante with a white dress and the practiced allure of Mona Lisa. The second photograph was taken surreptitiously yesterday in Dublin, a young woman in a raincoat exiting a residential building. Same face, same features, same_ Lady Sybil. _

Her name- just _her_ name- clarified the course of action instantly for him. And wasn't that why they had been deployed- to clarify the status of Ireland?

"Nothing," he answered."Call the Metropolitan police off the _Daily_. Sedition was coming; besides, Callahan- like all the editors of the major Irish newspapers- was already under surveillance. "Tail Branson. Find out his schedule, who he sees, what else he writes," he ordered. "That will be all."

Alone, the Brigadier shuffled the two photographs. The aide undoubtedly had expected a request for more information. But all he needed to know was in these two pictures. Any more detail would only muddy the mission _when Mrs. Branson and I become acquainted. _


	94. Chapter 94: The Nurse Part I

_hello! Life is busy, but Part II (nearly done) will be posted tonight. thanks!_

* * *

><p><em>So how does it feel to be married? <em>

Sybil tapped her pen, stymied once more by the ubiqitous question asked by Granny and Mama and Mary and Edith and now, Isobel.

_How _does _it feel? _

Burning hot and unbearable, those first flush and frantic nights, the long and languid ones now, the teeth marks around her breast they'd laughed about this morning.

Gentle as snow, one head falling on the other's shoulder, a blanket around a sleeping chin, a hand to help with his tie or her necklace or the freshly laundered sheets, a whisper in the dark, _goodnight good morning _and all the in-between.

Bright and crisp as autumn leaves, one private joke after another, the photo-books filling up with new places and faces, a house full of the good habits and intentions of a new school year.

Enlivening as a lingering silver-spring twilight, when the sun and stars shine together without envy or ego, as expectant with promise as a visit to the garage or the new buds on the trees.

It was all the seasons at once, too much to truly hold in their too-full hearts and too much to ever sustain (or so forewarned the wistful, wise faces of the elderly couples who stared at their heads huddled in the park), but for now they marvelled and basked, loved hotly and sweetly, as much as they could until Novelty packed up and moved on down the road.

But of course, she couldn't write _that_ to cousin Isobel.

_Marriage, it turns out, is very busy_!

* * *

><p>In the summer of 1919, they <em>worked<em>.

Sybil took Rebecca Halloran's advice and initiated her job search at the Women Workers Union- or tried to. She was shortly informed by a disinterested receptionist that she did not meet the qualifications for the nurses' union. That eliminated all of major hospitals in central Dublin; only the most desperate ones in the farthest-flung districts would consider uncredentialed candidates.

But Sybil, never discouraged, chose to view this drastic reduction of her options _as a help not a hindrance_ as she wrote Isobel, _it did much of the leg work for me_ allowing her to focus her efforts on the employers with whom she had a real chance. She bought a regional tram ticket- _twice the price, extortionary _for poorer workers who couldn't afford city rents, she decried that night to Tom who teased her_ ah, so you're not such a capitalist after all, we'll make a socialist of you yet_- and after an hour commute, found herself staring up at a stately, if ruined, plantation-style mansion set back from the street, shaded by large oak trees.

DUBLIN CITY HOSPITAL announced a wooden plaque blackened with rot at the head of the criss-crossed, cracked pavements that cut a path to the entrance. It proved an accurate first impression of the charity hospital, with its sunken front column and bucket catching rain in the intensive-care unit, Ward One.

But Sybil only saw the nurses with their smart ironed caps, their steady chins and hands, and the immaculate dignity of the most human of professions, medicine; these were her people and she ached to be one of them again.

At the Nurses' Station, she completed an application but was told she had to pass a pre-exam for it to be considered. So back on the tram she went, and back once more on Saturday for the exam. She spent the days in between cramming at the public library, but it proved unnecessary; the questions were shockingly basic- what did 'BP' stand for, circle the stethoscope- and Sybil finished easily and first.

Later, she would learn the pre-exam was to weed out the (many) applicants who had no medical experience at all, some whom were not even truly literate; that was the employment situation in non-union shops- and why Sybil immediately caught the attention of the proctor.

Nurse Doreen "Dory" Moran was five foot nothing, a waif with white-blonde hair, a discordantly deep-alto voice, and a no-bullshit demeanor that made the trainers at York look like nursery maids. Nurse Moran was fierce but fair, friendly but unafraid to dismiss on the spot a nurse who wasn't up to snuff. Sloppiness was not tolerated. She couldn't improve the run-down environs, but she could ensure patients received care on par with the finest hotel- and she _would._

Make no mistake, there was a reason why, at twenty-six, Nurse Moran was next in line to be Matron. And the brunette who breezed through the pre-exam seemed like a very good candidate for her first hire.

"Branson!" she called. "Stay." Nurse Moran waited until the others filed out to pluck from the pile Sybil's answer sheet- _all correct_, as she expected. "You're a nurse then?"

"I was a VAD." The proctor's head shot up. _My accent. _Sybil's stomach plummeted, but she mustered her best _can-do_ smile and explained, "My husband is Irish."

Nurse Moran did not smile as she processed this new piece of information; Sybil could almost see the cons tick off on her forehead, like the wire machine at Tom's office. "He's not in Administration, is he?" Sybil's emphatic _n__o _did not appease Nurse Moran. "They wouldn't take well to that here, in the shadow of Kilmainham." Her reference to Ireland's most notorious prison did not elude Sybil. "For your own safety," Nurse Moran dropped, lest she think it pure prejudice. "People around here hate the English government."

_For your own safety-_ the same as _because he was probably a rebel _Sybil realized, except _she_ was the hunted class here, subject to the same dull threat of violence Tom had contended with his whole life. It did shock her- _a patient, do harm to_ me? _I__'m only a nurse, I don't have any quarrel with anyone. _That was the point though. That's what she had not understood back by the Renault.

But like her husband, her reflex was defiance; she refused to be cowed by innuendo. "And English nurses?"

That was not the response Nurse Moran expected. "We'll find out, maybe." She approved Sybil's exam with a red check. "Go schedule an interview."

* * *

><p>That should have been the end of it, Sybil told Tom over supper, but then Nurse Moran advised Sybil to <em>wear clothes you can work in<em> because, if she liked her, the Matron might _throw you in to see if you swim _to which Sybil replied, _no problem there _she'd been baptized by fire as a trainee, which led to Sybil recounting how she'd changed the bandages of a new amputee at six weeks. Nurse Moran's mouth dropped. _Six _weeks_? Jaysus, we didn't even set foot inside a hospital our first year_! Nurse Moran was a union nurse, with a university degree and London certification. That was a problem, she opined to Sybil, too much emphasis on books, not enough on practice. _I don't need a nurse who can name all the bones in Latin- I need a nurse who can _nurse.

"So she thinks," Sybil mused between chips, her attempt at bouillabaisse having ended in brackish disaster. "There's a name for us non-Latin nurses- _girls_. That's how Dr. Clarkson used to call us: nurses and volunteer girls."

"You probably have more experience than she does," Tom speculated. "There can't be too many mustard gas cases at Dublin City, can there?"

"No," Sybil chuckled. Tom noticed her face had taken on a quality he could never name (and perhaps he shouldn't be able to), the long shadow of a long war, of sights and thoughts unspoken. "She learned at university, we learned in a horror house. Must be nice."

Tom took a sip of beer and sized up her remark. "Would it?"

"Would what?"

"Learning all the bones Latin. At university_._" His wife now assumed the look he had affectionately termed 'trapped animal'- when she was caught in answer she wasn't yet ready to admit. He knew it well. "Would it be nice for you, I mean?"

"Don't be silly."

He wasn't, he said.

University... medical school, that was still a dream, a child's dream to daydream in dress shops in her brassier moments, a private dream. Had she ever said it aloud- to him, to anyone? It was ridiculous- she didn't even make the cut for 'real' nurse. She rose to clear the plates. "I'm well past that-"

"You're not," he interjected. "You're twenty-one!"

"- _and _I'm married."

_Her first answer is still to run_, even if only to the kitchen. And his answer- still, always- would be to wait. _As long as it takes. _Tom reached into his back pocket for his notebook and dictated as he wrote, "_SPC- No response to the question. _And the date," he called to her. "So I can mark it."

She came back in. "Mark what?"

He pulled her to him, onto his lap, but didn't answer. He hoped she would elaborate, but when she chose not to, he just kissed her cheek._ The day you know about yourself what I've known all along_. Could take two years- _Class of 1925- _could take more. He only wanted to assure her he was ready if and when she said yes.

"Perhaps," she admitted, as she toyed with a button on his shirt and the parable of her old pony came to mind. "But what would be nice for now is a job."

* * *

><p>Nurse Moran was at the desk when Sybil arrived for her interview. "Have a seat," she instructed impersonally, as if they'd never spoken. But on the walk to the Matron's office, Nurse Moran whispered, "Take off your wedding ring. Don't lie if you're asked about it directly, but you won't be."<p>

Glancing back, Nurse Moran held up crossed fingers. Sybil smiled. She had made an ally and more importantly, a friend.

* * *

><p>"I like her," Dory Moran declared in the Matron's office later that afternoon. "And I want to her hire her. With your approval, of course."<p>

The Matron was less enthused. Not that she didn't like candidate Branson- in fact, quite the opposite. She had real experience (oh, if the Matron had a pence for every time she'd had to explain wet-nurse did not qualify one for hospital work!) and had performed ably when "thrown in" to see to an elderly man with an ulcer. "_Demonstrably knowledgeable on anatomy, a common condition and its treatment, and hospital protocol_," the Matron noted in her evaluation. "_Had some trouble comprehending the Irish laborer varietal of English, which did cause the patient some minor distress as he felt he was perfectly clear in his expression._"

That wasn't a knock on her; candidate Branson's own excellent diction, respectful demeanor, and that she had the decency to cross her ankles when seated would be welcome propriety around here. Most of the patients, _God bless them_, lived like alley cats-_ and most of the nurses aren't much better!_

No, the problem with candidate Branson was her politics.

Not her Englishness- that was no matter, if she could do the job- but her age. Candidate Branson was a war-girl, another "modern woman" that Dublin City did _not_ need in its ranks_. _That was Nurse Moran- a superlative nurse, educated and from a good home, promoted by the liberal doctors to _shake things up _with vision far too bold for a humble charity hospital. _Shake things up_- like proposing a new ward for sexual diseases, as Sinn Fein's health minister Dr. Kathleen Lynn had advocated, nixed only when the older nurses threatened to quit en masse. This was a hospital for the poor, not prostitutes after all. But when candidate Branson had been asked to _speak about the mission of our hospital, _the Matron heard a lot about _advancements _and _wellness _and _improving lives_- echoes of Nurse Moran. _The harsh truth is, _the Matron thought, _what's killing the poor is life _and life was not a curable condition. Dublin City Hospital dealt in buckets, not new roofs. The Matron did not need another pie-in-the-sky subordinate with a skewed sense of purpose. "We'll see."

* * *

><p>But "<em>W<em>_e'll see_" was not in Nurse Dory Moran's vocabulary.

She did not leave open staff positions to chance (or antiquated Matrons), and she was quite certain she had found her ideal candidate. Sybil Branson was pure luck: experienced but inexpensive, a diamond on discount!

The candidate herself was shocked to open her door to Nurse Moran, breathless from running up the stairs. "Sorry for calling unannounced, I copied your address off your application- I hope you don't mind- but I wonder if you can come for another interview."

"A second interview?" Sybil echoed hopefully.

Nurse Moran's nose wrinkled. "Not exactly. I'd like Dr. Flannery to meet you." Dr. Flannery was head of the hospital- the Matron's boss. Like her, he was a veteran; and unlike her, an ardent reformer. He had promoted Dory and she was sure he'd see Sybil's value.

"Yes, of course," Sybil replied, but she was confused. "I'm to meet the Matron's boss, but it's not a second interview?"

Nurse Moran hesitated and then, "The Matron doesn't know. I arranged it," she confessed. "She thinks this job is wiping noses and arses," she sputtered, hands flying up in exasperation, "and if that's how you hire, then of _course_ that's all you'll get. But it could be so much _more_ than that."

Sybil's spirit was deflated- Dr. Flannery sounded like a last-ditch attempt- but she couldn't help respond to Nurse Moran's assessment of the Matron's rationale. The narrowness used to drive her crazy- medicine shouldn't be just injuries and illness, but prevention, rehabilitation, mental and emotional health. The staff who worked closest with the patients- like she and Thomas- understood that. _See poor Lieutenant Courtenay. _"I agree with that."

"You do?"

"So much- it's rather a relief to hear it from somewhere other than my own head!" The nurses laughed. "When I started as a VAD, my husband- not my husband then- gave me a bit of business for abandoning suffrage," Sybil said. "I told him I thought medicine could be political. Now here in Dublin, I think medicine might be more political than politics. The truth about this city isn't in Dublin Castle or a political speech- it's in the hospital admission records." There were no flowery lines or obfuscation there. "People need better laws, that's true, but they need 606 first."

Nurse Moran's eyes widened. "606?"

"The cure for syph-"

She knew- she'd pushed for it at DCH. _Too expensive, _the Matron claimed. _But there's a need for it. _The Matron demurred with the old, _We have a lot of needs. _"Have you worked much with it?"

"Sure. It can be a terror to administer." Sybil hadn't talked like this since she was a VAD- this was the point where Tom would turn green: _organoarsenic_ _compound, Luer needles, liver toxin, adrenaline for adverse reactions_- but Nurse Moran soaked up the technical details as readily as Sybil had when the stone-faced trainer conducted the mandatory seminar in the final week entitled "Miscellany" to spare Cora Crawley and the other mothers. "I'd say a third of our officers had it at some point- that's why the cost has gone down so much."

"We don't serve officers, we serve the other half of those unions," Nurse Moran noted bitterly, "and no cure or comfort is ever cheap enough for them. And God forbid you mention prevention!"

Sybil shrugged. "It's a Sisyphean task without it. But then, half the beds at poor hospitals could be cleared with vitamins and laundry soap, so..."

Dory Moran couldn't believe her luck. If she could only tell this Sybil Branson that her next closest competition was a former sanitorium chambermaid. A _chambermaid_. And yet, that old Matron... "You must be a Protestant- you're far too sensible to be a Catholic!"

"I am, if it matters."

"No, no. We've Protestant funders and I think Dr. Flannery is one as well. He was the Dean at Trinity medical school."

A former medical school dean? That both excited and scared Sybil; it certainly raised the stakes. "Well, I'm very interested to meet him."

"Listen, Sybil- can I call you that?- I have to run, but let me level with you. The money is half what you'd make at another hospital and the hours are worse, but I think you could make a real difference. Dr. Flannery will see it too, I'm sure of it. He's a new thinker, like us."

Sybil perked up. _Us_?

Nurse Moran turned around and smiled. "It's always a treat to meet someone of like mind, isn't it?"


	95. Chapter 95: The Nurse Part II

_So "posted later tonight" was a jinx. thanks as always!  
><em>

* * *

><p>The sandwich he'd scarfed for lunch churned in his stomach and that fourth cup of coffee hadn't helped. He had a dozen items to fact-check, but he couldn't concentrate. The interview today was make-or-break for Sybil. For her, but also for the dream, the one conjured in excited whispers between the backseat and the front, <em>the journalist and the nurse in Dublin<em>. Not just _the journalist_- it was an all or nothing proposition.

Tom was terribly nervous.

Most of the hospitals she'd applied to hadn't bothered with an interview; the few where she had the chance to make a personal impression had swiftly rejected her. Tom didn't say, but a peek at the addresses told him why: slums that voted 80%, 90% for independence would never offer a coveted and desperately-needed income to an Englishwoman over a local one. With those addresses, it was for the better- at least for his peace of mind. One hospital he'd made her cross off the list. "Sybil- think of my poor heart, love," he pleaded, aping his mother with a series of _a girl got stabbed up there_ dreadfuls. "You can't. _I_ wouldn't walk around that neighborhood."

"But people do obviously," she pushed back. "People who don't have a choice."

"Well, you have a choice. No."

Dublin City was the exception. That area was just as anti-Crown, but less dense and less "hot" as a consequence. Sybil had done well at her interview with the Matron and she seemed to have made an internal advocate in that Nurse Moran. The process had progressed enough that Mrs. Crawley had been contacted for a reference (in typical Mrs. Crawley fashion, she telephoned the newspaper from Yorkshire to inform Tom of this) _of course, I sung Sybil's praises but... _of course, she'd had to disclose she was a relation; that was a standard request with reference letters, for which there was standard response- straight into the bin, as Mr. Carson used to do.

Still, after supper they set two kitchen chairs opposite each other and practiced a mock interview. Sybil was so very _good-_ sure about what she had done and could do at DCH. Tom was absolutely tickled to discover this new side of her. _Nurse Branson at work_. He'd only seen brief glimpses of Nurse Crawley in action- directing Thomas about pills, organizing the convalescent home- but she really was a formidable interviewee. She'd evolved from the bouncy activist he used to shuttle to and from her various charity boards- she was now just as enthusiastic, but also serious and articulate about her profession, its complexities and limitations. Funny, it was not dissimilar from his own evolution from loudmouthed _Marx, Marx, Marx, freedom_ as a lad to a sharp-minded political journalist. He was still for Marx and freedom, but it had a different tone with the bodies of the Tsar's children buried and burned in Yekaterinburg_. _

Tom had a few minor interview pointers (he'd done this a few times) and yes, perhaps he was a wee bit biased, but he meant it when he told her, "You were terrific!"

Sybil's shy smile told him she did not quite trust his praise. "Should I shake his hand at the end?"

"Well, I don't recommend you snub him," he chuckled.

"No, I mean some men wouldn't like that from a woman. They'd think it presumptuous."

_Oh._ Tom had never considered that- he'd never considered anyone would make an employment decision based on a trivial point of etiquette. But Sybil had witnessed the consequences when women didn't know their place; she suspected Clarkson would have fired her if he could have. He cited her social position, but she knew not even his beloved Isobel ever flounced into his office as she had. "Most men aren't like you."

He had no advice for her other than, "All you can do is your best," but this world was no meritocracy, _not if an accent or a handshake can disqualify you- _

"Branson!" The shout shook him. Tom had been tapping his pencil on his mug for several irksome minutes and the Local Crime reporter finally snapped. "For Crissakes. Quit it, would you?"

"Sorry." Tom sheepishly stilled the pencil, then set it aside. "My wife's on an interview." He stole another look at the clock that loomed over the newsroom- she should just be getting off the tram. _Be early_, that was his first advice. She'd been a bundle of nerves at breakfast. He prayed Dublin wouldn't let her down. _Let _us_ down. _"She's had some hard luck and-"

The Local reporter was on deadline with no time for a chat. "Sitting here like a nervous mammy won't help her, will it?"

_Huh_. "You know Joe, that's absolutely right. Thanks."

* * *

><p>Sybil did not know that a prospective nurse who interviewed with the head of hospital should expect him to be distracted. This was the third interruption (this time, he had to step out). But then, she didn't know Dr. Flannery never involved himself in the hiring of nurses, nor that he had only made an exception after receiving a frankly astonishing reference letter from a Dr. Richard Clarkson which is what he turned to when he returned. "How long did you work for Dr. Clarkson?"<p>

"Two years, nearly."

"And how would you describe your interaction with him?" He was professorial, Sybil thought, in that he often opened with a broad question and it took awhile to clarify what he actually wanted her to answer. "That is, would you say he could provide an accurate and honest assessment of your work?"

"Oh. Yes. Certainly he could." She explained that Dr. Clarkson was the only permanent doctor at Cottage Hospital; during the war, doctors from York and Manchester cycled in on two-month rotations, but she had worked with Dr. Clarkson nearly every day for the duration of her tenure and he had observed her more than any other doctor, by far.

"I see." Dr. Flannery's eyes cast downward as his brow wrinkled further. "And so what did he mean when he described you as 'over eager' and 'aggressive'?"

Her jaw dropped. _Aggressive?_

Clarkson had written her a bad reference? That was unheard of. Unprofessional, even. _That ass- _when her official record was spotless, when he could have just refused_, when I'd need a third hand to count the mistakes I've seen him make..._ The hell with it- if Clarkson had blown her chances with Dublin City, there was no need to preserve his reputation. "I suppose he means that I did speak up," she replied tartly. "When warranted."

"When warranted?" Dr. Flannery repeated, his furrowed brow now arched. "You challenged the doctor?"

"Not on the floor," Sybil backed off a tad, "in his office. But yes. I did."

Dr. Flannery leaned back in his chair. "You thought you knew better than the doctor?"

"I _did_ know better than the doctor, in this case," Sybil retorted, unapologetic. "If he'd listened, the patient would be alive." Her assumption that the job was lost emboldened her. "The convalescent home is proof. I told you it was my idea- I lobbied for it and Dr. Clarkson supported me. Well, it was that patient's death that spurred it."

"Ah." Dr. Flannery grinned. "So _that's_ what he meant." He picked up the reference letter and read:

_Nurse Crawley has an unparalleled work ethic, impeccable professionalism with patients, and that most laudable staff trait with which I'm sure you are familiar: she can be counted on. Whatever the time, whatever the task, no matter the circumstances, Nurse Crawley will rise to the challenge and shine. The only flaw I can think to relay (and I do so mainly for thoroughness) is that she is a bit over-eager; she is early in her career and aggressive about her learning and taking on more challenging assignments. I daresay if she'd been born another, she'd be writing __my__ references- perhaps she still might yet. I expect great things from her and you and Dublin City Hospital would be fortunate to have her in your employ. _

_Yours Sincerely, _

_Dr. Richard Clarkson  
>Cottage Hospital, Yorkshire<em>

Dr. Flannery decided the false pretense was justified by the young woman's face- she was absolutely dumbstruck, as he unfortunately expected she would be. "Dr. Clarkson wrote that? About _me_?"

"I will tell you what we _don't_ want here, Nurse Branson- nurses who care more about protecting their jobs than their patients. You stood up for a patient- that's commendable. It took courage, but more than that it took expertise- to correctly identify both a missed diagnosis and an appropriate treatment. What does trouble me," he continued, "is that this seems to be the first time you're hearing that."

That was true- Dr. Clarkson had never showed her any favor, not even around Isobel- but Sybil wouldn't criticize him, she already felt awful that she had presumed the worst, even if Dr. Flannery had misled her. She supposed it was an interview trick, to suss out a candidate's true opinions. Sybil did not know that Dr. Flannery had accepted the position at Dublin City with a personal agenda of advancing women. As Dean, he'd seen too many of his talented female students discouraged out of the profession- it was, to his mind, as severe a problem as explicit discrimination- and his former (and future) pupils needed him in the workplace. "You are early in your career, so here's a lesson: you must not accept that," Dr. Flannery advised. "Everyone deserves to be told their value. Everyone needs mentoring. How else will you improve?"

"Yes, Doctor. Thank you."

"Thank you for your interest in our hospital." He half-stood and extended his hand, which Sybil shook and told him the pleasure had been hers.

* * *

><p>The man at the end of the cracked pavement bore a striking resemblance to Tom and then he waved. "I couldn't wait," he laughed as she ran up to him. "All I could think about was you!" They shared a quick kiss. "Don't keep me in suspense- were you a success?"<p>

"I think- I think I was," she nodded. _Yes. _Dublin City Hospital had seen her best. She might not be offered the job- other candidates could be more qualified- but that was out of her hands and she was proud of her performance. And even if the job didn't work out, _Clarkson's_ _letter was worth it_. She couldn't wait to tell Tom.

"I'm so happy you're here- you won't believe what Dr. Clarkson wrote!" She relayed Clarkson's recommendation, how she "_can be counted on_" and the "_great things_" expected of her; _I'm sure Isobel prodded him to write it,_ but that didn't matter_ it was still his words; _how Dr. Flannery had sided with her on poor Lieutenant Courtney _I must write Thomas to tell him we've been vindicated by a truly renowned doctor_, all her observations about Dr. Flannery and how she suspected he was a feminist because he liked Nurse Moran and he seemed to like her.

Sybil chattered as they boarded on the tram, all the way into center city and their stop- more consecutive sentences than Tom had ever heard her speak, like a bottle uncorked. He interjected occasionally with a question, but mostly he listened with pride.

As the tram slowed to a stop on leafy Merrit Square West, he patted her hand. "Something else you want to tell me?"

It was lighthearted, but when Sybil looked down and saw her bare hand her mood shifted severely- she was furious with herself. She fumbled her band out of her pocketbook as she followed him to disembark and pushed it back on. By the time the tram lumbered off, she was nearly in tears. Tom was taken aback- her reaction was... _disproportionate_, to say the least, and uncharacteristic. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." she repeated over and over with disappointed shakes of her head. "It's only that-"

Tom covered the labor market; he had supposed the reason as soon as he noticed it. "I know why."

That she had an excuse did not make Sybil feel better. They started to walk. Halfway home, she broke the silence. "Are you upset?"

"No. 'course not." He didn't know what she wanted to hear, but it apparently wasn't that. He tried humor. "Just relieved you haven't found someone else."

"Don't joke," she scolded, which annoyed him- did she want him to yell? "This is serious."

"Is it?" he returned. The idiots at the office complained about incomprehensible wives, but only idiots did that; anyone with sense would try to understand the issue. "Alright. You lied to-"

"I didn't lie," she interrupted. It was deceptive, but it wasn't a lie. She would not have lied about that.

"Let's not split hairs. You took it off to meet a man- that certainly _sounds_ serious," he said dramatically. "But I think you have a lot of obstacles and you made a rational calculation. You had two bad options- lose the job or lie- and I can't fault you for the one you chose." As for any implications... He half-smiled. "I think it's just a ring Syb, and if you dropped it down the sink, I wouldn't think you were after the plumber."

Now she smiled back, a little. "I took it off to meet a woman as well."

Her husband's brow shot up at her titillation and she laughed. _Not incomprehensible,_ he thought, just ensnared in an infinite web of social rules and expectations. He did have some concerns- what if she were hired? Would it be an open secret with the nurses? The doctors? Would she constantly be subjected to unwanted advances? But Tom knew he couldn't- and shouldn't- shield Sybil. The workforce was hostile to women- she would have to confront it. That was the only way things would change; indeed, it's the only way they ever have. "It's a new world after all," he quipped and took her hand as they headed for home.

* * *

><p>It stayed on Sybil's mind- it was still there when they climbed into bed. "What you said earlier... I don't think it's 'just a ring,'" she told him, staring at her hands on the bedspread. Her voice was quiet. "I think it's sacred and I would never want you to think that I think otherwise."<p>

Tom was tired and didn't want to rehash it. "To be fair, you were in a bit of a meltdown."

"I don't just slip it off and on for my own convenience," she impressed, still to her hands.

"Good!"

"But it's important that you _know_..." She raised imploring eyes to his.

"I told you- it's fine, love." Tom leaned over and kissed her goodnight. "It's really fine."

But it _wasn't_ fine for her.

Sybil was a new thinker, but she was still the sum of her life experiences- all of which, aside from these two months in Dublin, had been in culturally conservative Yorkshire. Her feminist education had come from the more liberal-minded widows on her charity boards in the Edwardian era, when women had no victories to count and the ambition of _equal_ was met with ridicule. _Wives, mothers, citizens- _that's what her canvas leaders drilled into them. And strike any talk of emancipation: _We don't seek to be 'liberated' from our husbands and children_. _We women welcome and cherish our duties as wives and mothers, but we believe our God-given roles include citizen as well_. Girls should aspire to be exemplary at all three, that was the best way to advance the cause.

She had failed today.

Tom didn't care, _thank God, _but all other men and most women would balk at what happened today. The Yorkshire suffragists would be appalled. A woman who cares more about her job than her husband- or appears to- will never win any support. Hadn't she seen the posters: **"Now the vote- what next?" **a sloshed woman at a bar, surrounded by three sloshed admirers, while a baby cried unattended.

"My father thinks I'm so selfish. To be honest, so does Mama albeit with less vitriol." She wondered what Isobel would think, but many middle-class people were just as harsh. "Your husband doesn't interest you? He works to the bone to provide for you, yet you can't be bothered to make him a decent home and meals."

At that, Tom had to interject. "First of all, your father doesn't work period and your mother doesn't do a damn thing around the house."

"Not just aristocrats, Tom. The houses I canvassed-"

"I'm sure there are _plenty_ of fat insurance salesmen with an inflated sense of themselves, but I was born in a tenement as were my three able brothers and the only person in our house who has ever worked 'to the bone' was my mother while my father was providing for himself at the pub. So these polite-society notions mean nothing to me, _nothing,_" he spat, feeling as he used to listening to those smug Conservatives peddling that tripe in Ripon with the genteel Yorkshire folks nodding along. "Women's emancipation will be the end of the world as we know it? We can only hope!" A rueful laugh at his outburst escaped. "But then, I'm part of the element that society has always scrubbed out to perpetuate the fiction that it is in any way polite."

Sybil hadn't seen Tom on his soapbox like that since they'd come to Dublin. "Tell me how you truly feel." He chuckled, but she did not. Every day here enlightened her to the full spectre of what she'd never noticed in their years in Yorkshire, all that Tom must have been feeling and fighting against; sometimes it amazed her he could have ever loved someone so ignorant. "Did you often feel that way in England?"

Tom brushed it off- it didn't matter, they lived in reality now. "And don't fret, your husband would never ask you to cook more." _The bouillibase._ Sybil groaned. "Sybil, those mussels had _barnacles_ on them. They blinked at me from the soup bowl!"

"They were cheaper!" she protested feebly. "For your information, I tasted it all afternoon and it was fine."

"The saltiness wasn't a tip-off?"

"It was _flavorful_."

The banter went on for a bit (three meals a day created ample material), then Tom turned serious again. "I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to 'be a husband' any more than you know how to be a wife. I know I want you to be happy," he said with a shrug. "To be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea that they won't know you're married. It's different here." He didn't mean Ireland, but in the lower class. "Unmarried women aren't off limits- ask Clare what she's had to put up with, I'll bet she has some stories." Sybil had stories too, Thomas could vouch for some of the more tame harassment, but it didn't seem the time to say. "But your work makes you happy. Get the job. We'll sort out the problems when and if they arise."

She took his hand. "You know I couldn't do this without you. Know that _I_ know that and it means everything to me that you're in my corner." This from Sybil, who did not often emote- even now married, even in their private moments- was epic. "Know too that I know whatever I achieve, it's because _you _are my husband. You love me and respect me enough to let me be-" She stopped; she didn't want to say _more than your wife, _as if that were insufficient. "To let me be my best."

The kiss that followed was the last word on the topic, which seemed to fit. Tom turned out the light, kissed the crown of her head as she laid down on him. _The world certainly could stand to be fairer and kinder to its women_. As he often did when he reflected on his relationship with Sybil, he thought of his mother- dutiful, the hero of herhouse, and invisible_._He couldn't fix the world for his wife, but at least in this house, she was a full person with equal treatment, she was heard. That had to help. He hoped it did. "Women's rights begin at home, don't they?"

Sybil sighed contentedly. "That they do, darling. That they do."


	96. Chapter 96: Summer 1919 Part I

_Thanks so much for sticking with this story even when I can't update as frequently as I'd like!  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Phoenix Park<strong>

**May 1920**

Liam was gone and she was alone, again. Tom was... God knows. The sun had been down for an hour now. If he'd made the ferry, he'd be almost to England now. _If not_... he'd be in custody, up the Castle if the authorities had discovered he was a "special circumstance," i.e. married to her; or if not, in a cell in Mountjoy with rapists and murderers.

She hoped.

There were worse fates: Auxie black boxes around the city where the interrogation tactics the Crown government did not use were used, suspects driven out of Dublin and never returned, court martialed in the dead of night, _he was_ _probably a rebel. _Maeve Branson received no notice, no appeal, only an order to find someone to mind her toddler so she could come identify her husband's corpse. A family, a future, destroyed by a knock at the door.

_Is fate knocking for us tonight_?

She tried to not think of that as she plucked the blades of grass around her knees. Tried not to think of last summer, of Tom and Liam chasing her and Clare around this tree, laughing. Tried not to think of Howth _the first thing I'll see _the milky sky and him rustling under her dress, swallowing the sighs from her lips. Tried not to think of last May _has it only been a year? _on the lawn of her childhood home, still such a child herself in retrospect, knotting an anchor for him as he told her about his absent father. Tried not to think that it was entirely possible that at this present moment, _all our future is past. _

* * *

><p><strong>One month earlier<strong>

Sybil awoke before dawn, the baby pressed on her bladder, and found Tom also awake, staring out their bedroom window at Dublin after curfew with the streetlamps shut off, the disorienting darkness intermittently cut by the blinding white floodlights on a tank grinding around the corner.

"_Did you write your letter?" Liam asked. He nodded. "And you told Sybil?"_

_He hadn't- he couldn't. "Did you do with Clare?" Liam had, both. Liam was braver than he was, Tom lied to himself. Liam wasn't beholden to Clare as he was to Sybil. He hadn't spirited her away to a foreign world, a foreign war. He wasn't about to become a father. He wasn't about to become the father both had sworn they would never be... "What did you tell her?"_

"_There's a letter. Make sure they give it to you- it's yours by right." _

_His baby brother, in the role of unaffected fixer since he was four- 'Don't cry, Mam. Maybe tomorrow, Tommy. Ah, who needs him anyway?'- as untrue then as now. "That's it?"_

_Liam's stare wandered to the horizon, to somewhere Tom was not, a future when he was not. "I told her I loved her," he said. "And to remember me sometimes." _

"You're awake?" Tom smiled wearily. "Earlier you said we should talk, then you changed your mind." She had assumed it was about money. "We can talk now."

Tom loved her for her tack _tell me and we'll work it out- _if only that were possible. The flat down the street had been blown out by a bomb yesterday. "We're in the middle of a war, yet we're going on like everything's normal."

His vacant expression, with a catch on that ever unappreciated word, _normal_- it had been hers once, uttered around a shaky cigarette with Thomas, fingers stained pink and vision stung with tears. _Oh darling... _Her chin came to rest on his shoulder. The Great War had schooled her; now it was Tom's turn. "What else can we do but carry on?"

Tom shifted to face her; in the shadows, he looked older, the lines on his face more pronounced. "What would you do? If something happened."

_To me_, he meant. She reared up_. _"I don't want to talk about that!"

"You wouldn't stay in Ireland, would you?"

"Tom-" Her head twitched like her instructors in York; half their job had been snuffing out depressive thoughts in the girls. "I know it's hard, but you can't let this morbid thinking take hold-"

"It's not morbid, it's the state of things-"

"The state of things!" she repeated, affronted. The Brigadier's breath, his blood on the stairs, the pistol under the sofa. "Do you think I don't know about the state of things!"

"You shouldn't have to risk your life for my war."

"Your war"- that's what Lord Grantham had called it when they were over for Edith; Sybil should "come home until the situation improves" which she'd dismissed _Papa, Dublin is my home_. He'd later cornered Tom: _Sybil only says that because you're in Dublin_._ If you weren't there, Sybil wouldn't bother a whit about Ireland and she and the baby would be safe_. It was Robert, so he'd just rolled his eyes and walked off... but weeks later, he couldn't shake it.

Sybil was taken aback- since when did he talk of _yours _and _mine_? It had always been _us_ with them. "It's not 'your' war. This is about more than Ireland versus England- we're fighting for _our_ values, for a country where people aren't exploited, worked to death or shipped off to die in land disputes. So our children will know a peace we didn't." _Our children. _The impossible wish under the Wise Men's star was about to come true. _If. _He started to cry. The situation in Ireland- not just the violence, but the politics- seemed so far from those early ideals, but she still believed. She smiled as she brushed his cheek with her thumb. "Are you surprised? I learned it from you."

"No," he replied, taking down her hand, "but when I hear it from you, I know it's right. For us- all of us- to stay. To do our part for something greater than ourselves."

"It_ is_ right. And I'm not afraid." The Brigadier was dead, the pistol still unused under the sofa. Sybil knew what she could do, what she _would_ do. She would survive. They would survive. _There may be tears, but they won't be ours_.

She reached her arms around Tom, so convinced that when he kissed her with, "People will say if I loved you more, I would have made different choices, but it isn't true. I couldn't love you more than I do," she did not think it odd.

* * *

><p><em>When will they say that? <em>Sybil wished to ask now, but of course Tom was not here to answer.

Her own mind had turned morbid in Liam's absence. She prayed her brother-in-law was safe, especially since it would be her fault if he wasn't.

The green slope of Phoenix Park was in sight when he suddenly stopped. "Sybil, where's the gun?"

_Oh sh-_

He beat her to the expletive. "You can't let them find a loaded Lugar in your flat!" It was a capital crime- armed insurrection- for Irish citizens to have weapons. "It's martial law!"

"I know, I'm sorry... shit!"

She never swore like that and her stress reminded Liam was she wasn't a Squad operative but a civilian who, like so many in Ireland, had risen bravely when drafted into a war whose battlefields were the streets of Dublin and its flats and its trams and places of business. Her whole life had been upended this afternoon- husband on the lam, ten minutes to pack what she could carry from a home they may never return to, five miles on foot to the park- she hadn't complained once. "It's alright, I'll go and get it," Liam said, even though the police likely already had the flat staked out as a trap. "Wait for me where we had the picnic with the absinthe last summer. Remember?"

Last summer, another era. "Yes." But what if- ?

"If I don't make it back-" Liam took a shaky breath. "Find a park ranger, tell him you are Lady Sybil Crawley and you need to contact your father at Westminster."

Her eyes widened- she clearly expected there'd be a safehouse, another escape route. _If Tom made it safely to England, they'll demand a trade- him for me. _"Papa won't protect Tom at my expense," she countered, voice rising in alarm. "Liam, they'll make him hand Tom over!"

"Tom can handle himself. So can I. The only one of us who can't end up in prison is you." A month from her due date, the Castle would bet Tom and Liam would confess to whatever, inform on anyone, to secure Sybil's immediate release- and the Castle would be right.

Liam drew a revolver from the back of his trousers; Sybil hadn't realized he was armed, _but Tom arranged it. He must have known. They must have discussed under what circumstances_... It occurred to her that it was possible Tom also had a weapon that she wasn't aware of and which he wasn't afraid to use. But Tom was the peacemaker, the diplomat, the idealist of them; she was the realist, the warrior (if a reluctant one), she was the one of them who could stand the smell of blood. "Tom knew the risks," Liam continued, as he reholstered. "He considered them and he accepted them."

_He did?_

Maybe she wasn't the only one with a secret.

* * *

><p><strong>Dublin, Summer 1919<strong>

Sybil had just entered An Cloch after her shift when Tom called out to her-

"Great God Sybil, have you read today's _Daily Mail_?"

It was a peculiar question to shout in a place where half the crowd was uniformed IRA, who watched as she made her way towards the table where Tom, Liam, Rebecca Halloran and some other Harcourt staffers were seated under an enormous tricolor tacked on the wall. "You know I don't read the _Mail._"

"Well, wait till you hear this!" A _Mail_ columnist had gone into the belly of the beast, Tom prefaced before he read-:

_"The Sinn Fein headquarters are situated at 6 Harcourt Street, a fair-sized ordinary Dublin house. The ground floor is occupied by the Sinn Fein bank and the other office premises are on the back and on the first floor. __The first impression I derived was that of youth. Young Ireland today is overwhelmingly Sinn Fein_. _There were bundles of literature lying about and a young man gave me a selection of pamphlets along with a young woman, with short hair, smoking a cigarette-"_

Sybil scoffed- that detail was aimed squarely at her father. "She's up to no good, obviously."

"Obviously," Liam grinned, offering her a smoke.

"He never gets around to mentioning how any of the men styled their hair," Rebecca spoiled for her. "Funny, that. But Tom, we _know_ all this, we work there. Get to the end bit!"

Tom continued: "_Cannot all of us who have the real welfare of Ireland at heart aim at capturing the imagination of Young Ireland- however hopeless the task may seem? Cannot we give her the fullest measure of dominion Home Rule at the earliest possible moment? Loving our own country as we do, we can understand the Irishman's passionate love of his beautiful island. If only we could approach the Irish problem from this standpoint, even the citadel of Sinn Feinism could not long withstand our onslaughts_."

Everyone within earshot, except Sybil, cackled.

"Not their problem anymore!" one lad whooped.

"Dominion Home Rule," another spat.

"It's about four years too late for that," Liam concurred.

"You know what's behind this sudden appreciation for the Irish character." Rebecca took the newspaper from Tom. _"In America in the past, the Irish vote had kept the United States and the British Empire apart... The Sinn Fein organization will continue to keep America and Great Britain apart til Ireland's right to self-determination is acknowledged."_

Tom tipped his pint. "God bless America."

"Like we're cranky babies to be pacified- 'Here's some Home Rule, now hush up,'" Rebecca fumed. "The condescension, I can't stand it!"

"It's the Occupier's mentality- it poisons their whole society," Tom posited loftily. "The Irish don't have that- other than what's been forced upon us. That's why we can create a cooperative society, where there won't be an institutional underclass."

The prediction earned an emphatic nod from Liam. "This joker proposes to loan us 'the best British business minds'? They've _been_ here- and what did they build? The 'informant economy,' where Irish terrorize each other for pub money while they rob us blind of our resources!"

Sybil listened to them vent, but she had a different perspective. "True, but it seems to me this column is a remarkable improvement from the normal British press fare on Ireland. Unless you read the Guardian- which only communists do, or so says Granny- Ireland is treated as... a military matter."

A lad, alone at the next table, overheard and interjected, "We've weapons too!"

"They have more," Liam shut him down and threw a look at Rebecca. This was the continental divide in republicanism: Sinn Fein's party operation was savvy and political, but too many in its military ranks were made farm boys with cowboy fantasies. "We have to think beyond force, to a political solution."

"Yes, it's America that's caused this opening." Like Sybil, Tom doubted if the Dubliners could appreciate how non-controversial an opinion _bomb Ireland to hell, sink it to the bottom of the bloody sea and be done with it_ was in Britain. "So what if it's self-interested? We never expected them to sympathize with us. And a lack of dollars will hurt the Empire a hell of a lot more than a couple of Paddys with rifles."

"'Paddys with rifles'!" The lad shot up. "That's what you think of the '16 men? You and your English wife?"

He went to swing, but Tom was just as quick, on his feet so fast his chair was knocked over. Without a sucker punch, the lad- and the whole hushed cafe- could see he was outmatched. He surveyed the room for support, but found none. Liam and Rebecca were both well-known in Sinn Fein circles and "Tanks Roll into Dublin" had made Tom a minor celebrity; no one here doubted his loyalty, English wife or not.

Tom's fists were up but he didn't advance. "Your move," Liam informed the lad, per street rules that both he and Tom were raised with. _This feckin kid... _he had probably never been in a fight and he definitely didn't know how to get out of one. Liam let him twist for a minute before he threw a rope. "I think what you mean to say is: that was clearly a reference to how Ireland's enemies see us and you're sorry you misunderstood."

The lad's hands dropped, his relief palpable. "Sorry."

Tom did not stand down. "Not to me."

The aggressor turned, red-faced, to Sybil. He couldn't be more than seventeen and she felt ridiculously older. "I'm very sorry, ma'am."

Sybil, more embarrassed than offended, accepted with a nod. Tom relaxed. "You could do with some air, I think," he directed the lad, who hastily departed. The tension deflated, Tom retrieved his chair, and the conversation resumed. The fracas was forgotten, but for the occasional patron who came by to commend Tom for his "upstanding" handling and shake his hand, the only time his arm moved from its position protectively around the back of Sybil's chair- which she noticed, if he did not.

Rebecca resumed her professional advances on Tom. The launch of the new Sinn Fein _Bulletin_ had been delayed because no one could decide what exactly it should be; there were already a dozen rebel publications in Dublin. Rebecca loved Tom's send-up of the Victory parade- she wanted to make their paper all satire and rename it the _Swift- _and she saw an opportunity when Tom told her how he'd been censured by his editor. "You're a brilliant mind entirely wasted over at the Irish Daily Mail. Hell, the _Mail_'s position- 'Home Rule, hush up'- _is_ the editorial position of the_ Irish Daily_!"

"Granted, it's not a revolutionary paper-"

Rebecca's black eyes shone as she pressed. "How are we to win if our best writers are loyal to the institutions of our oppression?"

"Hey, now- I'm loyal to my own mind. Then _Bulletin_ doesn't need journalists- not least because you can't afford to hire any. But what's so insidious- so effective- about this _Mail_ column is how convincing its kindness is. Is there anyone at this table who thinks the British intend the best for us? No, because every day we see evidence to the contrary. Or as Sybil said, read their own papers! I lived five years over there and every week I could read about the 'problem' of me and my race. You don't need satire- just print the record!"

Rebecca sat up, electrified. "Holy God, Tom- that's it!" The _Bulletin_ would be the British paper trail. "Every slimy lie answered with, as Tom said, the evidence to the contrary: the police reports, the court records, their published words. We'll be squeaky clean with both the Castle censors and those republicans nervous about party-controlled publications," at which Liam elbowed his brother.

Sybil listened to them list example after example of in-plain-sight British subjugation (she couldn't very well claim any) and observed her husband. There was so much of him she hadn't known before they arrived in Ireland: the tenements, bringing his father home from the bar, learning to fight and steal because that's how kids like him survived. How often had he read anti-Irish screeds in the English papers? He'd never let on to her. He was always (well, almost) upbeat and externally focused. His explosion about his slaughtered cousin had stunned her partly, she realized now, because he never shared his personal struggles. _But that was the servant's posture- unseen, unheard. A person with one dimension, to be of service. _He talked politics with her because she liked it. He would talk engines- but only if _she_ wanted to learn. On the subjects of poverty and injustice and prejudice- on which he would speak expertly from his own intimate experiences- what he chose to impress to her was the decency of her own parents. It was remarkably selfless and her own self-absorption and narrow aperture of her life before 1914 never failed to mortify her.

His face was flushed from the hot, crowded cafe, but also from the pleasure and satisfaction that his contributions were so well-received. For so long, so little had been expected of him, as if hold the door and drive was the most he was capable of. _Good future for someone of his sort, _her parents agreed when he was hired and oh, how she wished they could see him now! She almost had to laugh. _Wait until he writes it._


End file.
